Harry Potter and the Death's Head Mark
by el-inquisidor
Summary: Harry goes back in time to kill Voldemort, but changes history instead. Now Hogwarts is occupied by Nazis, Harry’s a P.O.W., Dumbledore is missing, the Dueling Club forms a resistance, and Tom Riddle has nightmares of someone he's never met. 1 of 3.
1. Prologue

**Title: **Harry Potter and the Death's-Head Mark

**Author: **el-inquisidor

**Summary: **Harry goes back in time to kill Voldemort, but changes history instead. Now Hogwarts is occupied by Nazis, Harry's a P.O.W., Dumbledore is missing, and Tom Riddle is leading a student resistance…

**Rating: **T / PG-13.

**Genre: **General—some Action/Adventure and war themes, AU/ alternate history, and a little romance.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This story is the first part of three-part series that has no formal title as of yet (I currently call it "Harry Potter and the Brotherhood of War" to myself, though). You can also find this story on http:// elinquisidor. livejournal. com /profile (without spaces).

**DISCLAIMER: **I claim no ownership of any character or plotline created by J.K. Rowling.

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**PROLOGUE:**

"It will be sometime in September 1942," Miller told him. "It's impossible to be any more precise."

"That's fine," said Harry, absently. September 1942. Riddle would be fifteen, and starting his fifth year at Hogwarts. He had opened the Chamber of Secrets and killed his father and grandparents in 1943. He had disappeared in 1946 and returned to Hogwarts in 1957, to ask Dumbledore for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

He'd killed his parents in 1981.

Harry forced his mind from the past. He looked at the two men beside him, Miller and Smith. Ryan J. Miller, a lean man who looked to be in his fifties, with silver hair and hard blue eyes. Sam B. Smith, a wiry man about a decade older, who wore balding hair and sweater vests—a strange contrast to Miller, who always wore as many weapons as his clothes could hide. They were a funny pair, Miller and Smith.

He had found them in a pub in Knockturn Alley. They introduced themselves as men who were "something like Aurors," despite lacking the ability to manipulate magic. They were old men, long retired, but still itching to fight against "the evils that plague our land."

The time machine had been Smith's idea, as he'd known that American wizards had experimented with time in ways the Department of Mysteries deemed unsafe. Apparently, he knew this because he'd once worked with them.

Smith was the theorist of the pair, the expert on the time machine itself. Miller was the realist, the fighter. And, if a cellar filled with Kalashnikovs was any indication, perhaps a little on the shady side of the law. Harry never asked—he was past caring about such things.

Both men were squibs, or perhaps outright muggles. This meant that Harry had had to bear the brunt of the battle that inevitably broke out when they went to steal the time machine. But Harry hadn't minded; he'd found the fight almost exhilarating. Finally, he was _doing something_. Not hiding behind the Dursleys or the Order (or Dumbledore), but _fighting_. He had a _plan_.

He frowned, thinking of how his friends would react if they could know his plans. "You can't kill a boy!" Hermione would say. "He hasn't done anything wrong yet!" As for Ron…Ron would have agreed with him once, but then he had—then—

Then they had died. They were dead now, killed by Death Eaters while covering Harry's escape from a besieged Diagon Alley. He'd thought they were right behind him, but they'd stopped to fight—stopped deliberately, stopped so that he could get away…

Hermione would be disappointed in him now. But, as she was dead, it no longer mattered. All that mattered was the war, and winning it.

Besides, Harry had declined to travel to the only other window before Voldemort's rise—March 1926, when Tom Riddle had been a mere infant. He would not kill a crying baby who hadn't yet learned to talk, let alone talk to _snakes_. But that was enough honor for him. He had no qualms about killing a deranged adolescent about to unleash a basilisk on the entire school.

No qualms at all.

"Potter," Smith said from right behind him. Once Harry would have jumped at such a startling summons, but he was getting used to it. Now he didn't even flinch. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," Potter said softly.

It was time.

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The world became black.

For a moment, Harry thought he had died. The sensation was not unpleasant…he remembered turning his head and expecting to see Sirius, but then the dark formless void around him shifted and everything became _white_.

Purest, dazzling, shining white light. Harry closed his eyes against it, but the light shone on, unhindered. The light wasn't outside of him—his eyelids could not guard against it, it was inside his eyelids, inside _him_…

It hurt so much that he thought he would go blind.

Then the light blessfully retreated, and the world was neither black nor white. It was a sort of blue, or perhaps _gray_…

Harry heard the voices of Smith and Miller in his head, briefing him on what he was about to face.

"We will be transported to 1942," Smith said. "1942 was an important year. It was the first time Dumbledore and Grindelwald fought, and an important year for the Muggle war effort as well."

"There's an old story," Miller added. "They say in 1940, after the Germans took Paris, Adolph Hitler stood on the French shore and looked across the English Channel. He could've taken England then, and it would've fallen easily."

"But he chose to invade Russia instead," said Smith. Both men paused, as if their statement were somehow important. But Harry, who had never quite learned wizarding history, let alone the _muggle_ sort, knew that there was something he couldn't quite catch, something significant to the tone of their voice and the way they told him… "_That _was a mistake. The Russian campaign was disastrous. It started out well, but in '42 it began to go badly. The winter was terrible that year and battalions of men died of the cold. And, the thing is, the new war spread the German forces between two separate fronts. Instead of merely fighting the Allies in the west, there were now enemies in the _east _too. Germany was sandwiched between them. In the end, both sides kept coming until they met in the middle of the fallen German Reich."

"What do you know about Grindelwald?" Miller had asked him, on another occasion.

"He was a dark lord," Harry replied. "Dumbledore defeated him in…1944?"

Miller frowned. "1945."

1945…

Harry did not know much history, but he knew enough to know that 1945 was the year that World War II ended, the year Hitler was defeated. He wondered if there was a connection between the two wars, the wizard one and the muggle one. He tried to remember something from his history class, only to recall that Binns had never been able to make it to the 1800s in the fifth-year course focusing on recent history, let alone to 1945.

1945…

He could almost feel the year pass through him. It was somehow tangible, but no more than a wisp of wind. As subtle as a cast Imperius curse, slinking across a darkened room to its target.

1944…That was "D-Day" wasn't it? With the Americans, and Normandy…

1943…the year the Chamber was opened, the year the Riddles died…

1942…

He'd arrived.

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"Keep him alive."

Harry was lying on the floor, somehow immobilized. But how…? _Petrificus_ _totalus_? But…the only others there were Smith and Miller, and they were muggles…

Harry saw the reason in Smith's hand. A tazer.

Strength was already returning to Harry's limbs, but Miller held another reason to stay still, a reason far more compelling than Smith's.

A gun. A Walther pistol, pointed at Harry's head.

"Lord Grindelwald will want to see him," Smith was saying. Miller kept his gun trained on Harry, his finger a micron away from the trigger.

They had betrayed him! Harry felt his face flush with fury—and embarrassment too. He should have been able to _see _it, to tell they were lying to him. But they had duped him, and now…

Now it was too late.

He could practically hear Voldemort's high-pitched laughter.

Miller tilted his head, but the gun didn't waver. "Don't look at us like that, Herr Potter, we are soldiers like you. We've been loyal for fifty-two years, waiting for the opportunity. You provided it."

"Loyal?" Harry spat. "To who? _Grindelwald_?" How could they be loyal to Grindelwald? They were muggles, and he was a wizard, a dark lord…He'd been the precursor of Voldemort, how had German muggles ever gained any sort of loyalty to him? Unless…

Harry thought of Grindelwald and tried to match the name with a face. But no face came, except the mustached profile of Adolph Hitler.

"We will tell you," said Miller, his blue eyes boring into Harry's (_his mother's_) green ones. "One soldier to another."

"Then _tell _me," Harry spat. Damn cowards. They hadn't even had the guts to fight him to his _face_.

_But that's how it is_, a little voice inside Harry said. _That's how it is in war. You must become a Slytherin to survive, and, Harry, you just weren't clever enough_.

"He won't believe you." Smith sighed, but waved a hand in a gesture that bade Miller continue. Harry noticed that he too had a gun.

Miller began again. "My name is not Miller, but Rudolf _Mueller_. And my comrade here isn't Smith, but _Schmidt_. We are German."

"So you're Nazis," Harry replied coolly. He could see where this was going.

"You didn't see what happened after the war before this one," Miller—no, _Mueller_—replied fervently, doubtless reacting to Harry's fierce look. He looked strange, standing over him in the dim light of what looked to be…a _warehouse_…with a curious look in his eyes. There was determination there, and excitement (at being back in the war, at being able to _do something_) but also a curious sort of…sadness. Sadness for him, the boy at his feet, a fallen enemy, but a fellow warrior as well. It was the look Draco had had in his eyes before Harry killed him.

"The Great War," Mueller explained. "The war to end all wars. It wasn't as civilized as this one—they used poison gas, and bombs were just as likely to destroy the sender as to hit the target. There was no reason for it either, only some _Scheiss_ about an archduke getting shot…That didn't matter, though, not a whit—everyone hated each other enough to begin the cursing without reason. And the kids…" Mueller shook his head. "The kids thought it'd be an adventure." He paused again, then continued: "And when the war was over—a war that _everyone _was to be blamed for—do you know what they did?"

Mueller's eyes grew wild with rage—and _grief_—and Schmidt had to take up the narrative. "They put all the blame on the nation left weakest," Schmidt said, his tone more detached, more scientific about it. But the shadow was there in his eyes too, just as it was in Mueller's. "My Deutschland," he whispered, like a child calling for his mother. "My _Vaterland_. And—" The shadow withdrew, replaced by a fiery anger. "—the wizards who fought, do you know what happened to them? What happened after my country's _unconditional _surrender?"

Schmidt fell silent, and Mueller picked up the fallen thread. "They took the strongest wizards and drained their magic." His words rang hollow in Harry's ears. What did he mean…'drained their magic'? What could that mean…?

"Made them little more than squibs," Schmidt rephrased.

"The best and brightest of an entire generation, drained," said Mueller, his voice oddly emotionless. "They were wizards one minute, and muggles the next." He paused, then added: "It happened to me." He rolled up his left sleeve. Harry, in his confusion, half-expected to see a Dark Mark there, but what he saw was almost worse.

There were scars on the skin, and discolorations. Parts of the skin looked greenish in the light. An image rose in Harry's mind, an image of hundreds on leeches nesting on Mueller's arm, sucking his magic away.

"And me," said Schmidt. His right arm cradled his left, but he did not reveal what was beneath the sleeve.

Both men were silent. Harry looked at the guns and knew that _now _was the time to jump them, now while they were caught in the throes of emotion, it was the best chance to catch them off-guard…but somehow he just couldn't move.

"We had a Hogwarts of our own once," Schmidt whispered. Harry recognized the tone. It was the tone of a grief too strong for tears, a grief _almost _too strong for anger, a grief expressed in monosyllables and emotionless words. "A German school for magic. But this…this crime, this monstrous _crime_…destroyed the entire generation. We had no wizards strong enough to teach, so the school was closed. It was what the other nations wanted. Now they could rest, secure that Germany had no strength to launch a wizards' war."

"But some _escaped_."

"Grindelwald was among them."

"And we rallied behind them." A light came into Mueller's eyes. "We could no longer curse, but we could shoot. We could not fly combat-brooms, but we could fly planes. We grew to respect the muggles then, and combined their ways with our own. And then the next generation, the one unsullied by the enemy, grew up and learned to fight."

"To fight as _wizards_," Schmidt clarified. He bared his teeth in a proud grin.

Mueller put a hand on Harry's shoulder—_an almost fatherly gesture_—and withdrew a faded handkerchief from his pocket. Harry glared at it. Did the man think he was going to _cry_? Did he mean to play father and wipe away a little boy's tears?

"This is why we're fighting, Herr Potter."

_But you're fighting for Hitler_! Harry wanted to say. The Holocaust was one of the few lessons he remembered from muggle school. The concentration camps, and the Bombing of London, and Hiroshima.

Then again, Mueller and Schmidt were serving a dark wizard—what would they care about a few eleven million dead?

He tried to stop them, he tried to remove Mueller's hand, he tried to rake his fingers through his captor's eyes—but he couldn't move. Mueller was pressing the handkerchief on Harry's nose and mouth and he was tired now, so tired…

"That's it, _mein_ _Junge_," Mueller said. "Don't fight it. This is not your war; you can rest now.

"We know about Tom Riddle. We know about Voldemort's rise.

"And, because we know, we will make sure it does not happen.

"Our future is safe from Voldemort, and it will be a brighter one, you'll see…

"So, sleep, Harry Potter. You deserve some rest."

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By the time Harry Potter woke up, it was too late.

Under the advice of Grindelwald, Hitler had already halted his advance into Russia and rerouted his troops for an invasion of England.

Miles away, in a mighty stone castle, Slytherin prefect Tom Marvolo Riddle woke up to a piercing headache and a sky glowing with lightning. It took him a glass of Dreamless Sleep potion to ignore it.

The Nazis marched.

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**Mini-Glossary:**

_Lord Grindelwald _– mentioned in PS/SS as a dark wizard defeated by Dumbledore in 1945.

_Scheiss_ – German expletive. (I'll give you a hint: the English version rhymes with "dimwit.")

_Deutschland _– German for "Germany"

_Vaterland_ – German for "fatherland"

_Mein_ _Junge_ – German for "my boy"


	2. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1:**

Alphard Black's first clue that something was wrong was the sweat on Professor Slughorn's face.

Horace Slughorn was not the sort to voluntarily exert himself. He spoke calmly, ate slowly, and never opened a door when a wave of his wand would do. He never walked or—Merlin forbid—_ran_, but ambled everywhere he went. When he had to transport ingredients into the Potions dungeons, he used leviweight carts no matter how light the materials were. (He'd even seen him using the cart for a sack of phoenix feathers once.) He never rode a broom when a flying carriage was available, and apparition was preferable to both.

But now he stood, his hand on the opened door, fingers trembling slightly, his forehead shiny and mouth opened like a fish. Alphard inwardly shivered and wondered what was going on.

Alphard remembered what had happened last night at supper, when the teachers had told the prefects to lead the students back to the dormitories at once and stay there until summoned. While the house elves had served them supper, tea (at two o'clock in the morning—Alphard suspected they had gotten confused somehow), and breakfast since, the confinement had started to wear on everyone. It had stormed outside without a single lull, the crashes of thunder waking those few who were sleeping, and the rain and lightning making the view from Slytherin Tower a muddled mess. Rumors had abounded: that Sibyl Trelawney—that oddball fourth-year Ravenclaw—had gone into a cataleptic fit, that large groups of muggles had been wandering the countryside, that animals were leaving the Forbidden Forest, that Grindelwald's forces had invaded the castle.

The last one had caused all manner of fright.

As the Slytherin seventh-year prefect, Alphard _had _to do something. The wait was driving him mad—and everyone else too. The lights went out late that night; no one could sleep. As mass insomnia ensued, he tried to organize the younger years. He got some of them shooting Gobstones, asked a violinist's portrait to play some music, and organized an impromptu dueling demonstration.

Alphard had been in the dueling club for over two years, but he had never had to expel a burglar, fight a rogue troll, or defend himself from one of Grindelwald's spies. It was an irony that the best use he'd made of Dueling Club was to entertain a bunch of eleven-year-olds with fancy spellwork.

The other prefects had generally been useless. His co-prefect, Matilda Bulstrode, studied Arithmancy in the corner. Walburga, his sixth-year sister, gossiped with Leticia Lestrange about Olive Hornby's aunt, who had apparently eloped with a squib. They'd tittered all night about it. Geoffrey Goyle, the other sixth-year prefect, was in hospital for something he'd done wrong in Transfiguration. Esperanza Zabini spent the night flirting with a seventh year two years older than her, before the two of them had gone into the Slytherin private library to, ah, _read_.

But Tom Riddle, the fifth-year prefect, had reacted well. In fact, the combat demonstration had been his idea, despite the fact that he'd been a member of the Dueling Club for less than a month. He had a calming voice, and the first-years were smiling in no time. And his spellwork—Alphard was relieved that he hadn't had to duel him yet. He was sure the boy would be one of the club's top eight in no time—no mean feat for a fifth-year. Alphard was beginning to worry about his own spot in the hierarchy.

It was surprising. He had always been civil to the boy, but never really watched him—halfbloods were rare in Slytherin House, and tended to be ignored, at best. There were too many people like his sister about, which was why Alphard had made it a point to at least greet Riddle when he saw him. He had never cared much about bloodlines himself—his ex-girlfriend, Marcia McKinnon, had a halfblood grandfather or something, a fact that his sister had incessantly harped on about. And in prefect meetings he tended to sit near Septimus Weasley. He was a funny guy, even if his family were blood-traitors and all.

Alphard's family was more pureblooded than most others in England, even Slytherin ones. An example was the Malfoys, who were relatively new and had to keep up appearances at all times. They had been simple merchants in the 1600s, but had since begun the rise into Society. Alphard had status to burn, while Abraxas Malfoy always had to play the pureblood.

Alphard had never set much store by House politics—his status gave him enough leeway for that—but now he was beginning to understand Riddle's position. Despite being halfblooded, Riddle was ambitious and had reacted to his House's disdain like any good Slytherin—he'd studied and worked and now…now he would _show _them. He was in Dueling Club and taking his O.W.L. courses, hoping for the time to come, the time when they would respect him.

Alphard knew it well. He was the middle child of his family, sandwiched between the lordly Cygnus and the forceful Walburga. At first he had strived to outdo them, but then he had gone to Hogwarts and learned to relax a bit. But the thrill of success, the drive to seize the moment and surpass them all, was still in the back of his mind.

A tiny voice inside Alphard muttered the cynical hope that he, and Riddle—and the rest of them—would live long enough to excel.

He broke from his thoughts. "Is it safe?" he asked Slughorn, dreading the answer.

"You can all come out now," the professor replied, with an answer that was not an answer. He could persuade, he could schmooze, and he could praise—but he couldn't lie worth a damn.

They followed him to the Great Hall. The Ravenclaws were already there, led by the Arithmancy department's Professor Metrikos, but the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables were empty.

But there were far more than students in the room. The head table was filled with men, dressed in boots and trousers and tunics with officious insignia. Similarly-dressed men with less insignia were spread around the hall, with strange instruments in their hands or slung across their backs.

"They're dressed like muggles," Walburga sniffed. Slughorn—who rarely quieted one of his own—only had to look at her.

Walburga's mouth closed.

Alphard tried not to look at the strange men, or the machines—clearly muggle—they held.

"Those are _guns_," said a voice in his ear. Tom Riddle was beside him. "Muggle weapons."

"That's how they imitate the Killing Curse, isn't it?"

Riddle's jaw hardened. "Yes."

"Who are these men?" asked Alphard. They were muggles, but they looked dangerous.

The fifth-year didn't respond.

"Riddle?"

"I will tell you later," Riddle replied, pointedly turning away from Alphard. "Not here."

Alphard stayed silent.

He had a bad feeling about this.

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"What's going on?" asked Minerva McGonagall, staring at the strangers who had walked into the common room. "Who are you?"

"Do not be concerned, please," said one, his voice strange.

"Are you in charge of these students?" the other asked.

"Yes, I'm Head Girl. What is going on?"

"Do not worry," the first reassured. "My name is Roland Hesse, and this is Marcus Holtz."

"We are here to help you."

Their voices were calm and soothing, but oddly precise.

Their accents were foreign.

"If you would join us in the Great Hall, please, we will explain to you everything."

Minerva thought for a moment. She looked to the boys on either side: Septimus Weasley, the seventh-year prefect, on one end, and Alastor Moody, a sixth-year, on the other.

_You have two of the best duelists in Hogwarts with you_, a voice told her.

Minerva stifled a shiver and wondered why she had just thought that. Then she wondered how two strangers had opened the Gryffindor portrait, how they had been able to get inside.

"Professor Dumbledore told us to wait here until he came back," she informed them.

"And your obedience is admirable," the first replied. "But we have been sent to let you out. Professor Metrikos gave us the password himself."

Metrikos? Yes, he was a professor and professors had all the house passwords, but he was the _Ravenclaw_ Head of House. Surely they could have received the password from someone more…direct?

The second man waved a hand. Out of nowhere, ten men strode into view.

"Our escorts," he explained.

Minerva went cold.

Something was terribly wrong.

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"They're muggles," said Augusta Longbottom, the fifth-year prefect, from her perch above the common room door. In front of her was the peep-hole, which gave an owls'-eye view of the hallway beyond the Hufflepuff dormitories. "I can't tell anything else."

Paul Pettigrew wished his older brother were there. While he was only a second-year, his brother Petronius was a sixth-year _prefect_. He'd know what to do. But he was in Ravenclaw, which may as well have been miles away.

"Let me see," ordered Jean-Luc Delacour. He was not a prefect, but he acted like one. He was an exchange student from Beauxbatons—Hogwarts had gotten a few of them lately. Petronius had told him Beauxbatons was closed. It was something about the war. Everything was, nowadays—but this especially. Delacour was a "refugee," they called it.

Hufflepuff House had a lot of refugees. Delacour, for one. Then there were Gretchen and Gertrude Goldberg, the German twins. And then there were the two Chinese boys: Ping Yuanjia and Chang Fei-Hung, both fifth years. And Jakob Schneider, another German.

Augusta looked down at Delacour, barely managing to move back as another girl assaulted the peep-hole. "Ludmila's looking," Augusta said dryly, stepping out of the other girl's way.

Then there was Ludmila Dolohova. She was Russian, but she wasn't a refugee like the others. Apparently her father was an ambassador, sent to the Minister of Magic from the "General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Socialist Wizards."

Petronius had told him that. He had also tried to explain something about how Russia—er, the _Soviet Union_—was important. Something about them once having a nonaggression treaty with Grindelwald and the German muggles, but now being at war with them. Apparently, the British Minister was trying to become friends with Russia.

Paul liked Ludmila, but he was also scared of her. She helped the younger years with Charms a lot, but she also spent time saying bad things about the government, about "its pureblooded aristocracy and fullblooded bourgeoisie." She passed out pamphlets that Petronius called "socialist." Once she'd gotten into a near-duel with the Slytherin Domitian Avery about something political. They'd spent ten minutes trading hexes in the field outside Greenhouse 4. But that was last year, and Avery had since matriculated. Though Paul vaguely remembered a younger brother still left at Hogwarts.

"Dolohova!" called the voice of the seventh-year ladies' prefect, Dolores Umbridge. Paul liked her too, though she tended to act a bit like a professor in the no-nonsense department. "Who's there?"

"They are mixed," Ludmila replied. "Eight muggles, two wizards. You can tell by the wand-holsters, next to their guns. And, Delacour…"

"What?" asked the Frenchman.

"_What_?" asked Dolores, sounding peeved.

"The men are _Nazis_."

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"Good morning, students of Hogvarts," boomed a loud voice, once the four houses were in the Great Hall. It belonged to a man with short gray hair and a large round stomach. He was dressed in a muggle-style military tunic and wearing a monocle. "Or, as ve say in Germany—_Guten_ _Morgen_."

He smiled affably at the world.

The world was silent.

Hestia Hooch (seventh-year Ravenclaw prefect) and Mohandas Patil (Head Boy) shared a concerned look. They'd known it was bad, ever since Professor Metrikos led them from the dormitory.

"My name is Albert Doppelburg," he continued, the smile leaving his face. "Ze men you see before you are members of ze German army and ze corps of sorcerers under Lord Grindelwald and _Der_ _Führer_."

Two seats down from her, Dedalus Diggle choked on his own saliva.

"Please, do not be panicking," Doppelburg said, his voice growing louder. "Under orders from our leaders, ve have stationed ourselves here to protect you. Your teachers left at sunrise, and you vere all alone.

"You see, Great Britain is now under zer protection of ze German _Reich_. Zat means zat you, zer magical children of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, are now ze children of Germany as well.

"Most of your teachers left upon hearing ze news. Do not sink too ill of zem—zis past week has been most worrying for _everyvone_. But you have no need to be afraid. Ve are here to care for you and to protect ze castle. Hogvarts school of Vitchcraft and Vizardry vill not be closed. I repeat: Hogvarts _vill_ _not _be closed.

"Two of your old professors are here vit us," Doppelburg continued, motioning at Professors Metrikos and Slughorn, who sat not at the high table, but below, with their students. "Please, Mervin, Horace, vhy don't you come up and join us." With a wave of the German's hand, two new places were set at his table.

Metrikos rose and mildly made his way to sit at Doppelburg's right. Slughorn moved with uncharacteristic haste to sit at Doppelburg's left.

"I regret to be saying zat none of your ozer professors accepted our offer to continue teaching here. But be assured that ve vill take care in finding replacements.

"Zis is a trying time for all of us. Parts of Britain are being attacked, as are parts of France, and Germany. You may be vorried for your families, your friends. Myself and my men vill do all ve can to help you. Tomorrow zis week, ve vill be reopening ze owlery, and you can send letters to your families.

"Ve understand zat ve vill be running sings a little differently zan your Headmaster Dippet. Zat is vhy I shall require that everyvone check the announcement board in ze back of zis hall, once every day."

Hestia turned and, sure enough, a bulletin board—liberally speared with pieces of parchment—had appeared on the back wall, just under the hourglasses that kept the house points. Glancing at them, Hestia noticed that the hourglasses had been reset—each house's glass was empty.

"But ve vill be keeping many of your traditions, to ease ze transition. You vill still live vit your houses, but one of us vill be close by, in case you are needing someting from us. You vill still keep your traditions of house points and quidditch, as soon as zer veather becomes tolerable."

Mohandas unfolded his hands and put them on the table. Slowly, lazily, he began to tap.

Hestia smiled. It was Morse code. Broderick Bode, another seventh-year Ravenclaw, had found it in an anthology of muggle warfare two years ago and eagerly set about learning it—he'd always been fond of cryptograms. His enthusiasm had worn on his friends until Mohandas and Hestia had agreed to learn it too. Mohandas did it because he liked languages, while Hestia had an interest in the muggle military—particularly the Royal Air Force, as she had almost run into one of its huge metal aeroplanes while riding Vixen, her first broomstick.

"Ve understand zat perhaps you students have ozer questions. You may ask zem to me now, if you vish." Doppelburg stood back and waited, a placid smile on his face.

N – A – Z – I , Mohandas tapped, trusting that Hestia would recognize the muggle reference. Hestia titled her head to the right in acknowledgement. It was obvious.

Somewhere at Gryffindor table, a student rose.

It was Minerva McGonagall.

"Excuse me, Herr Doppelburg," she called.

Doppelburg leaned back over the podium. "Just to inform you," he began, that same smile on his face, "but my title is 'Kommandant.' You students of course can address me as 'Herr Headmaster,' as you are not members of zer military. But just so all is clear. Vhat is your name, Miss…?"

"McGonagall," the girl replied. "Minerva McGonagall. I'm Head Girl here. And my question is: what provisions will be made for students wishing to return home to their families?"

"I regret to say zat is impossible at zis time," replied the Kommandant—as Hestia knew that was what he was, even if he made some pretense at being Hogwarts headmaster. "Much of ze infrastructure here has been destroyed, and ze fighting is at ze moment too fierce. I vill of course inform you vhen zis changes, Miss McGonagall."

Minerva did not sit. "I see," she said slowly. "Well, in that case, when will classes resume?"

"Tomorrow," Doppelburg replied. "Zis vill be a good time to tell you of ze schedule changes I haf made. Zey go as follows: every day at six-thirty o'clock in zer morning, one of my adjutants vill vake each house. Zen each student vill get dressed and meet in ze Great Hall at seven o'clock for ze morning _Appell_, or roll-call, in your language. Zen breakfast and classes vill happen. Your Potions and Arithmancy, as taught by Professors Slughorn and Metrikos, vill be at ze times stated on ze board. Zer vill also be ozer classes. For ze young men, zer vill be boxing taught, along vit vhat you haf previously been calling 'Muggle Studies.' Zese vill be required for all students here, and ze girls vill—"

"What is 'boxing'?" called another Gryffindor, Septimus Weasley, without even bothering to stand.

Doppelburg gestured to another man, a blond wearing a black tunic, who looked less than a decade older than the students. "_Obersturmführer_ Spungen vill explain."

The young man rose. "Good afternoon," he said, giving a brief bow. "My name is Karl Spungen. I will be teaching you boys how to fight."

"You mean, _muggle_ fighting?" asked a Slytherin—Abraxas Malfoy, a fellow Quidditch captain. "But we're wizards—we don't need to learn _that_."

"Who else thinks so?" asked Spungen. A few other Slytherins raised their hands, and some Gryffindors and Ravenclaws nodded.

"All right, I can see that," Spungen allowed. He started walking to the podium, when suddenly he spun, grabbed his wand, and disarmed Malfoy with a lightning-speed "EXPELLIARMUS!"

Malfoy slammed backwards into his housemates. Hestia noticed a grimace on Matilda Bulstrode's face, as she helped Malfoy up while rubbing her own head.

Spungen twirled Malfoy's wand in his fingers. He grinned. "Now you are as defenseless as a…muggle, as you call them. Look at the men in the back of this room," he ordered, gesturing to the soldiers with Malfoy's wand. "They are all muggles, and they could fight and subdue _any _of you, without your wands or _with _them." Spungen walked over to Malfoy who had picked himself up and begun dusting off his robes, glaring at the German all the while.

Spungen kept walking at him until they were only an arm's reach apart. Malfoy tried to step back, but the table blocked his path. The other Slytherins moved away.

"Now, what would you do if you were wandless and someone attacked you something like…this!"

A fist flew at Malfoy's face.

Hestia suspected that only five years of dodging bludgers enabled Malfoy to duck it.

"In my class," said Spungen, laughing at Malfoy's undignified evasion, "you will learn how to face attackers like a man."

That comment ignited Malfoy. He had always been a bit of a misogynist, Hestia knew. He had been one of the first to protest against her joining the Ravenclaw Quidditch team back in '38 and so becoming the first woman to play Hogwarts Quidditch since Amelia Aerhardt in 1902. He was a Quidditch captain, a member of the Dueling Club (which Hestia had also joined, much to his dismay), and would have been a prefect, if it hadn't been for the fact that Alphard Black had better familial connections with the Hogwarts Board of Governors (and—not that it mattered—better grades). He regarded himself highly, and his honor would not allow impunity.

However, his honor would also not allow his striking a man without fair warning. So he called Spungen's name before he swung his fist at the other man.

Or tried to, at any rate, before Spungen barreled in and punched him in the stomach. Malfoy doubled over.

Hestia heard clicking sounds as the soldiers adjusted their muggle weapons, pointing them at the boy.

Spungen waved his hand at them, and—to everyone's surprise—slung an arm over Malfoy's shoulders. "Good try, man," he said. "But if you'd actually hit me, you would have broken your hand. Here, make a fist again. No, not like that—turn your wrist up a bit—there, make it level like that." Malfoy blinked, and Spungen laughed. "You've got spirit. You'll do well with boxing. What's your name?"

"Malfoy," the blond said icily. "Abraxas Malfoy."

"Malfoy!" Spungen repeated. "Huh. Are you related to _Maria _Malfoy?"

"She's the wife of my father's first-cousin," Malfoy replied stonily. It was a close relation, by wizarding standards.

"Then we're blood!" Spungen exclaimed. "Maria Malfoy was born Maria Spungen. My sister. The Malfoys and the Spungens have an old alliance. Started back a few centuries, when we were trading partners."

Malfoy looked disgusted. Clearly, he had known about the Spungens and regarded them as blood-traitors. He probably saw _all _German wizards as traitors—Hestia heard they all fought alongside muggles and under a muggle ruler.

Plus, Hestia could tell that Malfoy didn't like being reminded of his family's humble merchant origins. They only dated back to the 1600s (or so Hestia read), which was rather _nouveau riche_ when considering other, older wizarding families. Particularly the ones in Slytherin house.

Spungen clapped Malfoy on the shoulder and stepped back to address them all. "I will look forward to seeing the rest of you men in the Great Hall tomorrow before dinner." Then, with a nod, he walked back to the high table.

"Zank you, Karl," said Doppelburg. "Ze rest of the news vill sound quite bo-o-oring after zat, but vhat can I do? Ve vill be offering classes in High German to anyone who vishes to learn—see ze bulletin for ze times. Ve vill also have a course in Saxon Magics, vhich all students vill take. Zis vill start next veek, vhen Professor von Bismarck arrives."

Doppelburg stopped with a smile. "But I have kept you students long enough. It is time for dinner, yes? Vell zen…let us eat." He raised his hands and threw them down again, and the tables filled with food.

Well, all the tables save one—the high table, where the Germans sat.

It appeared that the elves weren't too fond of the occupiers of Hogwarts.

Hestia smiled and waggled her eyebrows (hawklike, Olive Hornby had called them once—she thought them too thick to be a lady's) at Broderick and Mohandas.

But Mohandas only frowned and Broderick merely tilted his head.

G – R – E – Y, Broderick tapped. They would ask the Grey Lady. Surely she and the other ghosts had seen something. Surely they had seen everything—how Hogwarts was attacked, how the teachers must have fought, and how they fell. Surely they knew what the students needed to know.

Yes, Hestia told herself, looking back at the soldiers lining the walls. Surely, surely…

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Harry woke up and reached for his wand, but it wasn't there.

"Welcome to Stalag 13," a man said gruffly.

Harry sat up as fast as he could, only to smash his head on a slab of wood.

He was in a bunk, and there was another right above his head.

Harry remembered. "Grindelwald!" he exclaimed, looking around him. "Where are they?" There were several men in what looked like a large wooden barracks. One man was wearing nothing but long underwear, while another was doing his laundry in what looked like a large tub of soup. "Where…am _I_?"

"Stalag 13," the man repeated. "I'm John Bartlett. Colonel, Royal Air Force."

"I'm Harold West," the boy lied effortlessly. That was a common pseudonym of his.

The man waited expectantly. Another man was not so patient. "Well, what _service _are you in?" a blond man asked, raising his eyebrow.

Harry cast his mind about. "I'm…"

"Obviously not at liberty to say," said another man. American, by the sound of him. "Don't pester him, Carter." The man turned to Harry. "I'm Colonel Robert Hogan, American Air Force. This man," —He gestured to the man who had asked to know his service.— "is Andrew Carter." Carter grinned widely, like a child. "And this is Louis Labeau."

"Hello," a Frenchman said lazily. He was reclining on the bunk above Carter's.

"Hogan's a bit…bonkers," Bartlett muttered into Harry's ear. "Just thought I'd warn you."

"No need to warn him," Hogan replied lightly. "He'll find out soon enough."

Bartlett made a show of ignoring Hogan. "Over there, doing laundry, is Blondie. And at the table are Hoffie and Animal—" Animal was the man in the underwear. "—and Shapiro and Tryzynski. Kinch and Newkirk are out organizing something to eat, and Sefton's probably out trading with the Jerries again (_the bastard_) and the rest of the men are either pacing about outside or trying to get a peek at the Russian women." At Harry's confusion, the man explained: "The Jerries shipped in some new Russian kriegies and a lot of them were women. Pilots, snipers, that sort of thing."

A man—Shapiro—whistled. "Some of them are real lookers too."

"Not as good as my Betty Grable," argued Animal. "But I'll take 'em."

"Russian women?" Harry repeated. "Kriegies?"

"_We're _kriegies," said Hoffie, a barrel-chested man with sandy blond hair. "German for '_kriegsgefangenen_,' for prisoners of war."

"I'm…in a prison camp?"

"Smart one, he eez," muttered Labeau. "Only took 'eem three tries to get it." Carter shot him a look.

The other men began whispering.

"Damn, he looks like a _kid_."

"What is he—a partisan?"

"England must be desperate now."

Harry straightened his back and stood.

"No, he _can't _be a partisan," another man—Hoffie—argued. "Britain was invaded less than a week ago—there's no way they could capture him and get him over here that fast." He turned to Harry. "Is there?"

It was hardly a question, but Harry answered it: "No. In fact, I don't know what's going on in Britain." He tried to ask what they were talking about, but his throat had suddenly gone dry.

Hoffie's gaze softened. He looked at Bartlett. "I'm American," Hoffie muttered. "I can't explain this. You tell him—you're his countryman."

Bartlett nodded once, then turned to Harry. "We've been invaded, my boy," he said softly. "The Nazis flattened our cities with the _Luftwaffe_, then sailed in through the Channel. There's still fighting going on, but paratroopers have taken London and I don't expect the others to last much longer." His shoulders slumped and he shook his head. "God, I never thought they would do this. If they wanted to, they could have done it back in '40, but they didn't. I thought they were going for Russia."

"Guess Hitler realized Russia was a bad idea," Hogan supposed. "Some of the enlisted men already have."

"You should hear Schultz going on about the Russian Front!" Carter muttered, in the tone of a man quoting an old joke that wasn't very funny at the moment.

Harry ignored the two of them. "They…they invaded?" Harry repeated, his voice soft.

"Yes," Bartlett replied. "Happened six days ago."

"But this didn't happen…" Harry murmured. "Not _before_…"

Bartlett put a hand on Harry's shoulder.

Harry remembered Mueller doing the same before sticking the chloroform over his mouth. He jerked back, and Bartlett settled back into his chair, glancing at Harry with concern.

"_Bad things happen when wizards meddle with Time, Harry_," Hermione told him. Harry told her voice to shut up, then saw a vision of her death.

Harry put his head in his hands. It felt so heavy, like the drug hadn't quite worn off.

"Shouldn't have told him like that," someone was whispering. "He's just a kid."

Harry's head snapped up. He smoothed back his hair and straightened his shoulders.

He looked at Hogan. Bartlett was fine, but Hogan had a shrewd look in his eyes. It would be best to ask him.

"Tell me how this works," he said. "This camp, the Nazis—all of it. I need to know."

Hogan opened his mouth and began to speak.

Harry listened.

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**MINI-GLOSSARY:**

_Herr _– German word for "mister"

_Kommandant_ – "commandant." (Same military connotation as the English – this word was used to denote the man in charge of a P.O.W. camp, as well as a concentration camp.)

_Appell_ – "Roll-call." (German) Another word used in both P.O.W. camps and concentration camps.

_Obersturmführer_ – an SS rank – about the same as a "1st lieutenant" in the US army or a regular "lieutenant" in the WWII British army.

_Betty Grable _– American actress from the 1940s.

**DISCLAIMER / NOTE: **This chapter contains several homages to various war movies I've seen. The characters I've taken from _The Great Escape _(Bartlett), _Stalag_ _17_ (Hoffie, Blondie, Shapiro, Animal, Sefton), and _Hogan's Heroes _(Hogan, Newkirk, Carter, Kinch, Labeau, Sergeant Schultz) are the properties of their creators. "_Kriegsgefangenen_" I got from Paul Brickhill's memoirs of the historical "Great Escape." Tryzynski is my nod to the director of _Stalag_ _17_. The "Russian women" and Animal's obsession for actress Betty Grable also belong to the owners of _Stalag_ _17_.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **While I eventually want to post an update a week, I'll be traveling these next two weeks and won't be able to go online. Check back on March 12 for Chapter 2. Thanks for your patience!


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

"They're Nazis," Tom said, his face lit by the glow of the dormitory fires. The others stared at him, spellbound by nothing more than words. After four years of being ignored (_harassed_) by his housemates, he had been given his chance. He was the only one of them with enough knowledge of the muggle world to understand both sides of the war. They knew nothing—and knowledge was one of the most prized assets of Slytherin House. That, and the cunning to know what to do with it.

Tom had both. They needed him.

At last.

"And, although they're merely muggles, we can't just magic them away," he continued, glancing at Walburga. "They have wizards on their side too.

"Look outside. That's not ordinary lightning." Tom slowed his speech for effect. He let his eyes move throughout the group of his listeners, piercing each of them to the root. "The storm outside is not natural. The Nazis have invented a new way of fighting. The muggles call it _Blitzkrieg_—"lightning war"—because it's so fast. But there is another reason to call it _Blitzkrieg_…"

Tom remembered the bombs, the blitz of 1940. The orphanage had been hit in one of the attacks. He'd ran for it and tried to make it to Diagon Alley, where the wards would protect wizards from muggle bombs. But he was cut off by debris and a crowd of screaming, frightened people. A grizzled muggle warden had seen him then. Thinking the boy mad to be walking about during an air raid, the muggle had picked him up and forcibly carried him to a shelter. It had been humiliating for the thirteen-year-old wizard to realize that although he was the heir of Slytherin, a muggle could overpower him simply by being a grown man.

However, the most galling thing about it had been the owl he'd received that evening, addressed to "Tom Riddle, in a Makeshift Bomb Shelter in the London Underground" from the Ministry's Improper Use of Magic office. It had been to remind him of the Restriction of Underage Sorcery Act and censure him for his unsanctioned casting of a hover charm, which he had used to keep a mess of rubble from crushing his skull. The warden had been saved too, by virtue of the fact that he'd been standing close enough for Tom's shield to protect him as well.

"That's funny," the warden had said, wondering how the owl had gotten into the Underground. He was clueless—he hadn't even noticed Tom's use of magic. "Smart bird, to seek shelter like us."

Then he had used a blanket to smother a fire that had suddenly ignited, lit by Tom's indignation at being threatened with expulsion for defending his own life.

"Their wizards can control the weather?" asked Avery, jarring him from his thoughts.

Tom nodded, a little surprised at the boy's correct guess. Claudius Avery's older brother, Domitian, had been one of his worst tormentors. Domitian had been a fourth year when Tom entered Hogwarts, and he'd been eager to use his superior age and strength against, well, anyone. But a mudblood made a particularly appealing target. In his last two years at Hogwarts, alongside Lancelot Lestrange, he led a band of upperclassmen in making Riddle's life a living hell. Things had abated slightly when Tom was invited to the Slug Club in his fourth year, but Domitian and Lestrange were in the club too, and resented the contamination of their territory. So they never really let up; they just got more cunning in their insults. The younger Avery, the one in Tom's year, had dumbly tagged along with them, never initiating anything, but always standing by his brother. A second son, born to lackeydom, with no brains of his own—until now. Now, with no older brother to coddle him, he'd have to fend for himself.

"Yes, they can," Tom replied. "They are rather powerful, as well, so the storm is also one of wild magic."

"It makes sense," Alphard said. "Wild magic's pretty chaotic—I'm surprised none of their wizards burned out. And as for the other, Germany's pretty cold. I'm sure German wizards have been trying to control weather since the days of the Romans."

"Exactly," Tom answered. Alphard and Avery nodded, like students proud to meet with their teachers' approval.

"They say vampires can control storms and such," said Dorcas Meadowes, a sixth-year girl. "Perhaps they've bribed one to help."

"That's another possibility," Tom easily admitted.

"Maybe they're working in tandem," said Avery. "Vampire plus sorcerers equals…?"

"Nothing good," said Meadowes.

Tom inwardly growled. He couldn't stand the lack of knowledge he had of Norse magic, of the methods they were using.

He wanted to go to the Chamber. He would find answers there, just as he had when he'd found it last May. But it had been too risky—after Doppelburg's speech in the Great Hall, no one had left their common room. The last thing Tom needed was the Nazis finding _his _basilisk—the greatest weapon he had, save his mind.

"We don't have enough information," said Alphard, echoing Tom's sentiment. "We need to keep our eyes open. But I don't need to tell a group of upper-year Slytherins that." He grinned grimly.

"Yes," Walburga, another of Tom's self-appointed enemies, interjected. She'd once supported the anti-Tom Riddle campaign, as she'd set her sights on Domitian before hearing of her impending engagement to her young second-cousin, the third year Orion Black. "What do you think we are, Hufflepuffs?"

"Indeed," Malfoy huffed, still smarting from his earlier humiliation in the Great Hall.

"I think Gryffindors would be somewhat worse in this situation," mused Matilda Bulstrode, looking up from a book on aeroplanes.

"At least Hufflepuffs know how to _listen_," Tom agreed. Alphard chuckled.

"What about Sluggy?" Avery interjected. "He's our Head of House. Can't he do something?"

"He's looking out for himself above all," snarled Meadowes with unusual venom. "And he's _scared_. He won't help us."

Alphard glanced at her, his face surprised. "It'll be better if the Jerries let us prefects patrol again," he offered, uneasy at Meadowes's outburst. It was hard to make that girl lose her temper, but when she did, the results were a veritable _Ragnarok_. "I'll have to get Minerva to ask with me."

Tom nodded approvingly. Alphard was learning. He knew the Nazis wouldn't accept an Indian like Mohandas in a position of authority. In this case, the support of the Head Girl was better than the support of the Head Boy.

"We'll have to stick more prefects per watch," Alphard continued. "Then there could be at least two of ours out there on any given night. It'd be more work, but…you up for it, Riddle?"

Two of ours. At least two Slytherins out per night.

"Of course," said Tom, pleased to be included already. This would make things much easier.

Alphard nodded.

"These Nazis are being very sneaky about it," Meadowes said softly. "They know they'll have to win our hearts."

The others nodded. Slytherins were no strangers to manipulation.

"The Gryffindors might be hard-pressed," muttered Bulstrode, who had found another book, a more generic tome on muggle warfare. "They fancy themselves warriors, and the Nazis seem to try for that sort of air."

"But Gryffs also like to see themselves as noble," Meadowes argued. "They think surrender is beneath them. So while _some _will be caught up, the most visible resistance will probably come from Gryffindor."

Tom glanced at the silent Abraxas Malfoy. His resistance had been rather visible as well. Of course, many of the old-blood Slytherins were Slytherin in name only. They were really more suited to other houses, having asked for Slytherin only as a matter of familial duty. Malfoy, with his thirst for glory, was more of a lion than a snake.

Tom smiled to himself. He was more a Slytherin than any of them. By disposition _and _by blood. He may not be a pureblood, he may be confined to a hellish muggle orphanage under constant threat of German air raids, but he was far more worthy than _them_.

"What do you think, Tom?" asked Alphard.

Tom looked up. Six faces (_Alphard, Walburga, Avery, Malfoy, Bulstrode, Meadowes_) peered back at him. Walburga and Malfoy seemed reticent at listening to a fifth-year halfblood, but Tom would convince them soon enough.

"I think," Tom replied, "that we should take care of our younger years. They are the most vulnerable to outside manipulation."

As for the rest…

"We must remind them who they are, who they must be."

He was _in_.

"And meanwhile, we will bide our time…"

He had power and influence now—something he had not always possessed, especially as a mere orphan among hundreds, trapped in a city on fire.

"…and study our new enemy…"

The Nazis' bombing of London had brought him the closest he'd ever been to death.

"…make whatever alliances we need to…"

And they would pay for that. Even if he had to enlist some others. Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs—whoever was necessary. A fight was inevitable; even his fellow Slytherins could see it.

"…until the end."

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"We need to fight," Alastor was saying.

"Fight," Betran Bones repeated. "With what?"

"Anything," said Alastor. "Everything."

No one spoke. Some shook their heads.

"What about the professors?" the boy forged on, his voice rising. "What happened to them? Who here believes that tripe about them leaving us? They wouldn't leave. Dumbledore? Merrythought? Lestrange? They would _fight_."

Yes, they would have fought. Albus Dumbledore, the transfiguration professor, was one of the most powerful wizards Alastor had ever met. Sometimes he could feel the strength vibrating around him. Galatea Merrythought, a former Hufflepuff and current teacher of Defense Against the Dark Arts, was an ex-vampire hunter with utter loyalty to the school. And Longinus Lestrange, the charms professor and youngest of the three, was a Master Duelist and former Auror.

"Alastor," Minerva said, nervously petting her pet cat. "We can't fight them now. They're stronger. Most of us haven't even reached our primes yet—I'm only seventeen. Most of the seventh years, and perhaps some sixth years is all we can expect to have comparable magical strength. And as for the knowledge…none of us has ever fought in a war before. We don't have the _experience_."

Alastor grimaced with the reminder of his own lack of training.

Gawain Lockhart sat up. "What about the Dueling Club? We're experienced in combat."

"Duels aren't the same thing as combat, Gawain," Alastor sighed. "My father said recruits to Magical Law Enforcement make that mistake at first, but they learn real quick. If they get a chance." The boy inwardly shook his head. Gawain was the same year as him, and had been annoying him ever since day one, when he'd plopped himself down next to Alastor on the Hogwarts Express, heard his dad was once a Hit Wizard, and promptly asked him how many criminals he'd "taken out."

It had been even worse when the kid was made sixth-year prefect. Alastor despised incompetent authority.

"Still, we should look at the Dueling Club," Septimus conceded. "It's the group of people most likely to want to fight."

"Unless they joined it for the prestige on their future job resumes," Bertran said dryly.

"Good point," said Septimus. Plenty of pureblood family boys being groomed for political office liked to be in the Dueling Club. It kept up "the old ways" and looked good, just as Bones said.

"And who are you thinking about recruiting?" Minerva demanded skeptically.

At the same time, Devin Diggory asked: "Are you talking about other Houses as well?"

"Of course," Alastor replied. "What good'll it be otherwise?"

"Alphard Black," Septimus shot out. "He's a good duelist. Prefect, plays chaser in Quidditch. He's a fighting kind of guy—would've been in Gryffindor, if not for his family. Ten galleons says he's in the Slyth common room right now, trying to rally a bunch of…well, Slytherins."

Alastor didn't like the idea of Slytherins getting involved, but figured that the Slyths would especially hate the Nazis, seeing as most of the invaders were muggles. "You know him better than me," he relented.

Septimus grinned. He and the Slytherin prefect had been rivals since their first year. While they'd been a bit childish at first, resorting to such measures as itching potion and transfiguring each other's trousers into skirts, they'd learned to give each other a grudging respect. In the meantime, their prank war became legend—so legendary, in fact, that the two sometimes banded together to attempt particularly noteworthy stunts, like the infamous Grey Lady of the Lake fiasco or the time they turned the entire Hufflepuff dorm pink. This collaboration culminated in their sixth year, when they had been found voluntarily partnering each other in Dueling Club practices and even speaking to each other in the hallways.

"Hooch's good," Septimus continued. "For a girl," he added, mainly to gain the amusement of Minerva's glare. "And Mohandas is decent."

"He'd better be," said Devin. "He's Head Boy. But Dolohova could eat his dinner, and supper too."

"The Russian?" asked Minerva. "In Hufflepuff?"

"Yes," Septimus confimed. "Ludmila's a great duelist."

"She's mean," Alastor admitted. "Especially to the lads. I half expect her to hex me in the—"

"Alastor Moody!" Minerva scolded.

"—head," Alastor finished dumbly. "Right in the head." He turned to Septimus. "'Ludmila'? You're on a first-name basis now?"

"Not quite," Septimus admitted. "I just like the sound of 'Ludmila.' It's Russian for 'beloved.' I looked it up."

Alastor shook his head. "That's a little creepy, Sep."

"What?"

"You, stalking the Abominable Snowwoman of Siberia. I mean, she's decent-looking, but couldn't you find a girl who's not handing house-elves copies of the _Communist Manifesto_?"

"She's giving house-elves the _Communist Manifesto_?"

"Yes." He'd seen it. It had been quite funny, actually. Dopey had just blinked at her with round, big eyes, and Fuzzy said something like: "But we is not supposed to be making trouble, miss."

"You know, she gave me a copy of the _Manifesto_," Septimus continued, his eyes gazing off into starry nothingness. "It's how we met."

Minerva laughed. Sometimes you just had to laugh or else you'd cry. "You're helpless, dearie."

"What?" Septimus asked. "You know, I keep wanting to talk to her about it—I _know _I'd get her to talk to me if I brought _that _up—but I can't really understand this Marx fellow. He's a bit too muggle for me."

Alastor sighed and looked at the mirror by the fire, taking the time to grease his hair into place.

"Delacour," he said, ignoring Septimus's lack of love life. "Jean-Luc Delacour. Another exchange student. Was in Beauxbatons, before it closed. He's from southern France, which has been occupied by Nazis for a while now. We should talk to him."

"Good idea," said Devin. "He hates Nazis. They're the reason he came to Hogwarts in the first place."

"We should get Goyle," said Gawain. "He's good."

Alastor sighed again. Gawain thought anyone he couldn't beat in Dueling Club was good.

"Goyle's fair to middling," said Septimus. "Not aggressive enough. Now _Malfoy_, he's good. A pain in the arse, though."

Alastor snorted. "No argument here." He craned his head for a moment. They'd named the Dueling Club's Big Eight now: him, Septimus, Delacour, Dolohova, Black, Malfoy, Hooch, Gawain…wait, but Gawain had only just scraped by, as someone had creamed him spectacularly…Meadowes.

"Dorcas Meadowes," Alastor announced. She had annihilated Gawain at last year's tournament. How could he have forgotten her? She was more skilled than Hooch, though Hooch had been the first girl to join. And she was calmer than Dolohova, which often made her the better hand in a duel. She was the best (_looking_) of the club's girls, in Alastor's opinion. "You know, the Slytherin. In my year."

"Yeah, I remember her," said Bertran. "First practice of the year. She was helping that new fifth-year, wossname?"

"Something Riddle," said Septimus. "He's one of the new prefects." He remembered the kid from the first (and only) two meetings they'd had that year.

"Tom Riddle," said Minerva. She made it her business to try to learn the names of everyone at Hogwarts—a task that had unfortunately grown easier since the beginning of the war.

"Good fighter, that kid," said Alastor. But, unable to resist, he added: "Knew a surprising amount of hexes, for a new fifth-year."

"You know Slytherins," Septimus replied, laughing. "The whole house common room is like dueling club practice. You have to know your wandwork just to survive in there."

"Speaking of wandwork…"

"Yeah. Tomorrow."

Minerva leaned forward. "You're talking about the new class, aren't you?"

"What class?" asked Gawain. "What did he call it, again? At dinner, Doppeldore called it—"

There was a silence as cold as a Dementor's breath.

"I mean, Doppel_burg_," Gawain backpedaled. "Doppelburg."

Alastor started to open his mouth, but stayed silent. He didn't want to admit that he had once mispronounced Doppelburg's name in the same way. It was strange… "Doppelburg" and "Dumbledore" sounded only slightly similar, but he felt that there was something…suspicious…about it.

But Alastor wouldn't voice his suspicions out loud. He'd sound like that Ravenclaw girl, Trelawney, going on about her dark omens and murky constellations.

The Gryffindors looked at each other. They decided, by silent unanimous consent, to change the subject.

"Where do you think they're holding him?" asked Bertran, thinking of their Head of House. "Do you think the Nazis have a wizard prison? Their own Azkaban?"

"I hear the Nazis have lots of prisons," said Septimus.

They tried to change the subject again, but it kept drifting back to Dumbledore, and Doppelburg, and the Nazis, and the war.

Then they decided to go to bed, but they didn't have much luck. Alastor tossed and turned all night, fighting shadows in his sleep.

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Harry was adjusting to kriegie life.

The biggest thing about it was the all-pervasive _boredom_. Harry was used to dull times—warfare was merely a few moments of terror pervading a solid block of boredom—but this was different. The boredom covered you like a moldy blanket. You were no longer a soldier, restless but secure in the knowledge that you were serving a cause. No, you had _no purpose anymore_. You couldn't help your allies or fight your enemies. The only choice you could make was either to quietly eat your ration of "vegetable" soup or run across the warning wire and make a dash for the fence.

The word for the latter choice was "suicide."

Bartlett told Harry about Ives, a Scotsman with claustrophobia. The man had gone mad one day—his mind at the point where being in a barracks felt like being in a coffin. He'd run out of the barracks one afternoon and rushed the fence.

It took a while for the guard at the nearest tower to respond, as he had probably been dozing or staring off into space. But, as it was, Ives didn't even make it over the first block of barbed wire.

The boredom was maddening, but the men had learned to deal with it. They walked about in a parody of a stroll, greeting their friends along circuits of the compound, or stepping over to another barracks for afternoon tea. (Tea being another word for boiled water.) The men would talk, talk as if they hadn't seen each other in ages and were not currently imprisoned in the same compound. Ten-minute conversations took a least an hour. Talking was a way to ward off the _doldrums_, as Carter called it.

Keeping busy was another. Some men gardened, while others merely pretended to. They would shuffle around with their hands in their pockets, kicking at the sand and talking to the men who were actually planting things. Other men paraded on the fields for exercise. According to Carter, "we once had a vaulting horse but then the Nazis took it away because some men were 'abusing that privilege.'" Harry wanted Carter to talk more about that, but the man never did, as he was distracted by a group of men playing pinochle, another popular P.O.W. activity. There were classes as well—Harry was learning German and Spanish—and even church services, taught by such chaplains as Robert Jones (Baptist, American Air Force), Paul Wakefield (Anglican, British Royal Air Force), and Father John Murray (Roman Catholic, American Navy).

Camp life was filled with self-imposed work, but Harry was growing sick of it. He had just learned the future tense in Spanish and the imperfect in German, but he felt his little efforts were wasted. He yearned to fight. He owed his very existence to a prophecy of war, and if he couldn't fight Voldemort—_if Voldemort lived_—he couldn't survive.

One afternoon in October, he set about remedying this.

"I need to talk to you," Harry ordered, cornering Hogan by the camp's "theatre"—an eight-by-six meter hut squatting on the North side of the compound.

"Sure thing," drawled the American. The two of them were accustomed to talking or occasionally playing cards in the barracks. Hogan never seemed to mind answering Harry's questions and he asked few of his own.

Harry didn't know how to say it, so he just looked around to make sure no Jerries were about before blurting out his question. He'd been there over a month—if they didn't trust him now, he supposed they never would. So he may as well ask. "Don't you have an escape plan or something?"

Every P.O.W. was supposed to have one. That was how it worked in the movies.

Hogan, to his credit, did not look surprised. He blinked once and shook his head.

"We have a plan," Hogan told him. "Listen carefully."

Harry leaned forward.

"Sit," said Hogan. "Wait. Eat what we can. Then, when the Nazis get clobbered, go home. That's our plan."

"That's a plan?" Harry retorted. "Sounds like _Scheiss_ to me."

Hogan only laughed. "That's life, kid."

He took out a cigarette, and puffed away by the place between the North guard tower and barracks 4, smiling like he was free and not caged like a dog.

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**Mini-Glossary**

_Bombing of London_ – part of the Battle of Britain, a series of Luftwaffe German air force attacks that occurred between 7 October 1940 and 16 May 1941. While the Nazis were striking other cities at this time, London eventually became the main target. Over 40,000 British civilians died as a result, and over a million houses were damaged/destroyed. (Taken almost verbatim from Wikipedia.)

_Blitzkrieg _– German for "lightning war" (blitz "lightning" and krieg "war"). Basically, it's an offensive method of warfare used by the Nazis. The main thing emphasized with blitzkrieg warfare is speed. It begins when the air force swoops in to bomb the area to be attacked. Then ground troops (tanks, then infantrymen) move in _very _quickly – so quickly that the area does not have time to muster its own defenses. This is how the Nazis were able to take France and Poland in such a short amount of time.

This style of warfare was developed to cope with the problems of trench warfare of World War I, which tended to leave two groups of men staring at each other and occasionally rushing Braveheart-style at their enemies, only to be mown down by the other side's machine guns. Meanwhile, blitzkrieg warfare matched modern weaponry with modern tactics, unlike trench warfare (modern weaponry with not-so-modern tactics). I'm oversimplifying this, so I suggest that people Wikipedia "blitzkrieg" if they're interested. :-)

"_They say vampires can control storms and such…" _– Borrowed this from Bram Stoker's _Dracula _and traditional vampire mythology.

_Pinochle _– a card game.

_Ives _– Character borrowed from _The Great Escape _(motion picture version). In the movie, he also committed suicide by trying to climb the fence in broad daylight. Ergo, neither the situation nor the character is mine.

_Father Murray _– Character borrowed from _Stalag_ _17_. (He's not exactly _in _the movie, just referenced as the chaplain who asks the P.O.W.s to "give up all swearing during Yuletide.") Not mine.

**The next update will come next week, probably by Wednesday evening. **


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3:**

Harry had seethed for a while after Hogan's response. He'd been watching the camp's prisoners and despised the lot as lazy bastards. It was their duty to escape, but they preferred to play at gardening.

He would stare beyond the barbed-wire fence and wish he knew what he could do. But he'd be worthless in a fight against muggle guards. One of Grindelwald's men had placed anti-apparition wards around the camp, and he had no wandless magic worth mentioning. He didn't know how to use a gun, let alone take on armed men with nothing but his hands.

He needed his wand. But it was gone—probably resting with Mueller or Grindelwald by now. If only he could steal another wizard's wand—he might have a chance then.

An answer came to him while standing with Cooke—called Cookie—and Sefton one morning. Sefton was the camp entrepreneur, always off trading with the Jerries. But not normal trading—everyone did _that_—but _real _trading. He got eggs, meat, even _wine _from the Nazis. The others watched him and called him a "collaborator" for it, but Harry could tell the names were only because they were envious. As for Harry, he supposed it made no difference whether one gave the Nazis cigarettes or not. It's not like Sefton was trading information with them—among the kriegies, there was nothing worth spying on.

Sefton was smoking a pipe, an act Harry had rarely seen before. "It's not my usual fare," the American admitted, seeing Harry's interest. He shifted the pipe to one side of his mouth and grinned lopsidedly. "Won it playing cards."

Harry shook his head. "I'm not much for pipes."

Sefton laughed. "It was made in England, you know." He took the pipe from his mouth and glanced at the side of it. "It's got the profile of a man on it, wearing some sort of funny hat. Says it was made from holly in some place called Dee-a-gon Alley, London, 1904."

Harry swallowed and opened his mouth to speak, but found that he had gulped everything down the wrong way. He began coughing.

Cooke and Sefton watched him curiously.

"A-are you o-okay?" stammered Cookie. His plane had been shot down over someplace, and he'd had a stutter ever since.

"Diagon Alley?" Harry asked, finding his voice.

"Yep, that's what it says," Sefton replied. "What—that mean something to you?"

"It's where I live," Harry lied. He added a shrug. "Lived, I guess. Before the war."

Cookie was nodding sympathetically. Sefton looked bored, but wasn't being rude about it. For Sefton, that was kindness.

Harry felt overwhelmed by memories. Diagon Alley. His first exposure to the wizarding world. He'd bought Hedwig there, and walked its streets with Hagrid and _Ron _and _Hermione_ (_no, can't think of those memories_) and barely escaped from Knockturn Alley there and ate ice cream at Fortescue's (_with R_—) and (_watched his best friends die in the attack th—_) bought his first wand there.

His first wand. Thirteen inches, made from holly and phoenix feather.

_Holly_.

Like the pipe.

"Sefton?" Harry began, making his face a mask. He couldn't show desire for the pipe—Sefton was above all things an entrepreneur, and showing weakness would merely drive up the price.

But, then again, the price didn't matter. The currency of P.O.W. camps was Red Cross cigarettes or other useful things like razors or sewing needles. Harry, who didn't smoke, had been saving his cigarettes for an emergency.

Sefton was perceptive. He knew what Harry was going to ask. "Twenty cigarettes and a bar of soap," he said.

The price was outrageous. Harry even laughed.

"No soap," he retorted. "But I'll give you thirty cigarettes." He was being more than generous.

Sefton grinned and tossed him the pipe. "Fine, kid," he conceded. "But only cuz I like you."

Harry ignored Sefton. The pipe seemed pretty normal. But any pipe from Diagon Alley had known wizards once, and it had the same wood as his wand.

Perhaps it would be enough.

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Alastor and Septimus had decided to see the castle's situation for themselves. Shortly after breakfast _Appell_, they slipped out the Great Hall's side entrance and proceeded to wander around the school. Everywhere they went, they saw soldiers—but the soldiers didn't stop them, not yet.

The Germans were everywhere. Some officers were living in old staff quarters, while others—mainly the muggle infantrymen—lived in a camp by the lake. New troops were coming in every day, and Alastor watched as the veteran soldiers welcomed their comrades to the magical world by dragging them into the castle. All the muggles had to be forced inside at first, as the anti-muggle charms made them want to avoid Hogwarts. But once they knew it was there, they could come and go as they liked. Then the new recruit would be introduced to a portrait (though they had to be careful _which _portrait, as some were quite open in their resentment of the occupiers). Or made to watch the suits of armor move around in what the students called The Changing of the Guards. Or shown the charmed ceiling of the Great Hall, or taken to the lake to watch men fire guns at the waters until the Giant Squid surfaced in indignation. Squid-Baiting was perhaps the most popular game for the soldiers.

Everything was different. The halls were quiet now, with the sound of students laughing replaced by the clicking of boots on stone. Uniforms were a more common sight than robes, and more people had guns than wands. Patrols wandered the halls at night instead of Apollyon Pringle, the old caretaker. (In fact no one had seen Pringle since before the occupation, though Septimus had gone to his office and found his cane, his cat, and his young assistant, Argus Filch, who'd chased him out and threatened to flay him with a horsewhip if he ever came back.) The hospital was filled with wounded Germans. Alastor could tell that this was the condition the Nazis had set for allowing Madam Pasteur, the school's healer, to stay at Hogwarts. In fact, Alastor didn't think the woman would turn the troops away even if she could—she quietly told Alastor and Septimus that she was a healer before everything else, and quoted the Hippocratic Oath. But, she added with a whisper, she would heal all the students who needed her, _no matter the reason_.

Alastor filed this information away for later. It could be useful.

It was then that two SS men kicked the students out, saying that if they didn't need medicine, they shouldn't go to the infirmary. Septimus hadn't reacted very well to that, sarcastically muttering something about needing _potions_, not _med-i-cine_. Alastor then dragged his friend out of the room. Smarting off at the guards did not seem like the best policy. Especially because the guards were clearly kicking them out of the infirmary because of the wounded Germans in there. The guards didn't want them to see their occupiers as weak—and while that meant that they at least _had _weaknesses, it also meant that they would be working hard to conceal them. Severe discipline would be the rule.

But other things were eerily familiar. Filch had taken up the task of being Hogwart's caretaker, and stalked the halls as never before. (Alastor supposed he'd worked out something with the Nazis—why else would they let him wear a whip at his belt?) Dippet's office was still guarded by a gargoyle that refused to let anyone without the password in. Even the Nazis couldn't break through, though some men tried with some exploding metal objects shaped like pears. One of the muggleborns called them "grim-aids." Slughorn and Metrikos seemed to have forgotten the password to the office, claiming they were confunded by an old Hogwarts spell.

It was then that Alastor realized that Dippet must be dead. According to something Minerva had read in _Hogwarts, A History_, the death of a Hogwarts headmaster caused all the office's passwords to reset themselves. Only the chosen successor could create new ones and give them out.

"The castle's in a sort of lockdown," Minerva phrased it. "An interregnum."

Alastor wondered if Dippet had ever appointed a successor. Probably Professor Dumbledore. He was the deputy headmaster, after all. But…but if Professor Dumbledore were dead, what then? Would the gargoyles guard the door forever, leaving Hogwarts headmasterless for the rest of time?

But Alastor didn't want to think of Hogwarts dying like that.

Classes started. Potions was still with Slughorn, but the course had been utterly stultified. All potentially dangerous potions had been removed from the curriculum and Slughorn was left teaching them a steady stream of Pepper-Up Potions and Decreasing Drafts. Slughorn wandered between the desks with a sad little smile on his face, his rosy face growing wan with worry.

According to Minerva, Arithmancy was the same as ever. Metrikos taught as if there were no occupation, as if everything were normal. Alastor concluded that Metrikos was one of those pure Ravenclaw types who wouldn't care if the world went to hell as long as they had a library to keep them happy. Alastor hated men like that almost as much as he hated the bureaucrats that had dealt with his father.

Saxon Magics was ridiculous. It was basically Professor von Bismarck marching up and teaching them how to do spells they already knew how to do—but with German words instead of Latin and Greek ones. Alastor found the whole thing stupid. He had met a few German wizards before. They'd been the Weimar Republic's version of Hit Wizards, sent to Britain to help his father track the "Luftpirat," a German criminal who supposedly raided banks in a zeppelin. They'd never caught him, but two of them grew to be good friends with his father. Alastor had called them "Uncle Fritz" and "Uncle Fred."

They weren't very good at magic, from what his dad had told him. They even used muggle weapons instead of wands sometimes. But when they did use magic, they used Latin spells.

Alastor didn't know much about magical theory, but he would trust the Latin system—the system that had been used for almost two thousand years—over the one that had been used by some halfcracked Viking warlocks, faded away, and then resurrected by some nutty Nazi wizards.

Each class was also larger than normal. The Germans crammed all of the four houses into each class, citing some nonsense about promoting "school comradeship." That didn't fool Alastor for a minute, though. They probably just wanted a greater number of students in fewer locations, to make them easier to watch. They would need fewer guards this way, which meant that their resources weren't yet up to snuff.

The Boxing Club was even larger than the classes. There were two of them—one for the first through fourth years, and another for fifth year on up. The first class had been mainly a demonstration—not that the students needed another one after Malfoy's cautionary example. Spungen had begun by explaining the proper stance and how to strike with one's hands. Alastor didn't have trouble with it—he'd fought with playmates long before buying his first wand. But many students did, so many that Spungen felt another demonstration was in order.

As his partner, he had selected one of the Chinese Hufflepuffs—a lean round-faced boy, the taller of the two Chinamen. Alastor couldn't remember his name at the time; he could only come up with "Ding."

"What's your name?" Spungen had asked, as if reading Alastor's mind.

"Ping Yuanjia," the boy said, with as much dignity as he could, considering that Spungen was over a head taller than him.

"Too long," Spungen laughed, and a couple students joined him. "I won't remember that. Well, why don't you come over here, if you please."

It was not a request.

"Now you will see why you must block the way I have shown you," said Spungen, to the others.

And that was all the warning Ping got.

A fist flew at the boy's face, quick as a curse.

Alastor must have blinked, for the next thing he saw was the boy's left hand held at face level, and Spungen's fist, a hand's width to the side of its target.

Spungen blinked. His jaw clenched, and he punched again with his other hand. But, unlike the first strike, which had been aimed straight-on, his arm was curved and aimed at the boy's temple.

In less than a second, the boy's left hand shot up and his head dropped down. Blinking, Alastor saw that this was because his knees were now bent and his feet spread a meter apart, his left in front of his right. His left hand was above his head, with his fingers hooked lightly around Spungen's wrist.

"Shit," someone swore softly. It was Alphard Black, in the midst of a group of Slytherins. Riddle, standing next to him, shook his head slightly.

A Hufflepuff started forward. It was the other Chinese boy.

"Are you done dancing, Mr. Ping?" Spungen scoffed. Then, without looking up: "Stop right there, Mr. Chang. Let your countryman and I handle this."

The other Chinaman's face flickered his surprise at being called by name. He stood still, but called to the other boy in what Alastor assumed was Chinese. Judging from the grimace on his face, Ping didn't seem to like what Chang said.

But when the next punch came, Ping didn't dodge it. He fell, his right arm slapping the ground and his left curling around his injured face. Alastor thought he saw blood gathering around his nose.

"And that," Spungen spat, ignoring the figure at his feet, "is why you have to learn to block."

Chang had rushed forward to aid his fallen fellow Chinaman. He asked to go to the infirmary, and Spungen sneered that some people couldn't handle being hit. But he waved his hand dismissively, and the two boys were off.

Alastor and Septimus had looked at each other. Neither got much practice in that day.

A month passed.

Alastor listened and watched. He learned where the patrols went and how many men were in each. He knew which soldiers were safe, and which were not. He went to the library and read about the formation of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, of muggle military tactics, of Aurors. He went to the German class and studied every night.

And he was learning. He could translate the occasional German command and was getting frightfully accurate at identifying Nazi soldiers. He could tell if they were muggle or wizard (the wizards were all SS, but had an extra lightning rune on their left sleeve), what rank they were, and what branch they served in. Mainly, there was the _Wehrmacht_, or normal army, the _Waffen-SS _(the all-muggle combat troops of the SS), and the _SS-Zauberkampf_, which was the wizarding arm of the SS. The word _zauber_ was German for "wizard," while _kampf_ had some special meaning for the Nazis, as Hitler had written a book called _Mein_ _Kampf_.

But those men weren't the only ones marching through Hogwarts. Alastor had once seen a man from the _Luftwaffe _(the "air force," made of men who flew muggle aeroplanes and presumably wizards who charmed them to stay up in some way) and the crew of a _U-Boot _(a type of muggle craft that could go underwater like a wizarding ship) that had spent a few nights docked at the bay by the Quidditch pitch. There was also another type of SS man, which Alastor had seen manning the trains that now thundered past Hogwarts at regular intervals. They did not wear camouflage fatigues like the _Waffen-SS _or combat half-robes like the _SS-Zauberkampfe_, but had caps with the insignia of a grinning skull.

A month passed, and a routine was established. The students adjusted to the new curfew, adapting so completely that they were surprised and actually _grateful_ when the Nazis extended it back to the old hours.

Of course, familiarity with the new rules also bred contempt for them. The students eagerly took to hexing the muggle soldiers. The Ravenclaws were as always very academic about their jokes. Once they charmed all the Nazi propaganda posters that lined the halls, turning the pale skin of the Aryan figures into the deepest black and giving the hooked-nosed "Eternal Jew" a Hitler mustache.

The Slytherins were psychological about it, playing to the natural fears of muggle military men in a castle full of magic. When riding staircases with soldiers, a good vertigo charm could leave them reeling for hours. Best of all, it was perfectly untraceable. The _Confundus_ _Locorum _curse could make a five-minute walk into an hour's worth of wandering in circles, always narrowly missing the door that would lead them where they needed to go. _Nasus_ _Obstructus _plugged up noses and _Memento Dormire _caused fatigue.

The Gryffindors were equally resourceful. Regular teams went down to the kitchens and spiced up the German barracks' food, while others spent hours stirring Itching Potion and coating any available surfaces with it. One of Septimus's Weasley cousins mislabeled the doors to every classroom. A group of Gryffs was particularly reckless when they sang a colorful rewording of the Colonel Bogey March every time the muggle SS had marching drills.

It got bad when someone transfigured a soldier's head into that of a fish.

Minerva and Septimus had been with him. The metamorphosed man was thrashing on the ground, his head covered with green scales and his mouth open in agony. Alastor knew that he'd be screaming if he had human vocal cords. As it was, the only sound the man made was the slapping of helpless hands on dirt.

Another German, a _SS-Hauptscharführer _by the look of it, rushed over. The Nazi sergeant took one look at his fallen comrade and grabbed the collar of the nearest wizard, a hapless Slytherin named Avery.

"Make him right!" the German barked. "_Schnell_!"

"I-I-I didn't," Avery sputtered, but the Nazi only tightened his grip.

"Fix him!"

"My God!" Minerva cried, putting a hand to her mouth. "The lungs are partially transfigured!"

The Nazi looked up, his blue eyes wild. "_What's _happened to him?"

"He can't breathe!"

The Nazi pulled out a pistol. "Someone fix him, or God help you, I'll—"

"Does he have gills?" someone asked, with a voice so calm that it was almost bored. It was Riddle, looking at Minerva. "Can you tell?"

"Y-yes," Minerva stammered. "But I can't tell if they're attached to the rest of his respiratory system or—"

"_Aquasphērē_!" Riddle commanded, using his wand to draw a circle in the air. A blob of water appeared three feet above the ground, rippling in the breeze. As Riddle lowered his wand, the blob also lowered, until the fallen man's head was completely submerged.

The man stopped thrashing, and Alastor saw strange swellings on his neck open and close.

"That will give him a few minutes," Riddle said. "But I can't change back the head—I've only had four years of Transfiguration." He looked at Minerva, expectantly.

Alastor too was expectant. Minerva was the best of any student at transfiguration, and Dumbledore's top pupil. She'd know how to reverse it.

"I…I…" Minerva pulled out her wand, her hand shaking. "_Finite Incantatem_!"

…did nothing.

There was a terrible instant. Alastor would never forget the look on Minerva's face.

Then, a heartbeat later, she stepped over to the man and knelt by him. Her fear seemed gone as she waved her wand and muttered something Alastor couldn't catch. A shadowy outline of the man's body hovered in the air.

"I'm removing his gills and restoring his proper trachea," she announced, sounding detached, like a professor giving a lecture. "Riddle, remove your spell."

"_Expurgo_," Riddle murmured.

Minerva muttered a mess of Latin and Greek. The man's body shimmered. His face was still scaly, but he had lips again, and he was breathing.

Minerva's shoulders slumped. "Madam Pasteur can remove the scales," she said, swaying slightly as she stood. "This should be done immediately, though he's not in too much danger now."

The sergeant hoisted the fallen man onto his shoulders and rushed away, the gun still in his hands.

"Impressive," boomed a voice from behind her. It was a German woman, one that none of them had ever seen before. Her shoulders were broad, but she was not fat—merely…larger-than-life. Her facial features were also broad, as if drawn by a thicker pencil than everyone else's. Her brown hair was pinned back in a tight braid, and her smile was that of an eagle—proud, noble, but very, very predatory. "Quite impressive, Miss…?"

"McGonagall," Minerva said primly. "And you are…?"

"Your new professor of Charms," the woman stated. "My name is Walkyria Wagner, and I come from the mountains. You wouldn't know the name of the town, it is so small."

"Charms?" Minerva repeated. Alastor inwardly groaned. The Nazis were _still _playing school with them.

"Yes," Wagner replied. She smiled again, flashing teeth. "Any questions?"

Alastor jerked his head toward the castle, but Minerva ignored him. "Yes, as a matter of fact…I have one question."

"What is it?"

Again, Alastor tried to nod the Head Girl away, and again, she resolutely ignored him.

Minerva fixed Professor Wagner with her best steely-eyed look. "I want to know when we will be resuming lessons in Transfiguration."

"_Ach_, yes, I believe you have just demonstrated the significance of the subject. However, this incident has also demonstrated how dangerous such knowledge can be in the wrong hands…" Wagner cocked an eyebrow at the younger woman. The gesture made Alastor think of a cat, playing with her prey, testing the mettle of her opponent.

"Give me a few minutes of your time," Minerva demanded. At Alastor's look, she tacked on a dignified "please."

"Certainly, Miss McGonagall," Wagner replied. "If you would follow me to my office…"

As the two women walked away, Alastor and Septimus shared looks of horror. Alastor had been worried about that happening. They'd have to wait up now, make sure the Nazis didn't do anything to Minerva…

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And wait they did.

For hours.

_Four _hours.

And Minerva _still _hadn't returned.

"We'll have to look for her," Alastor said.

"It's past curfew," Septimus nodded, "we'll have to get Potter's invisibility cloak."

Scorning an offer of assistance from Gawain, the two of them went over to the second-year dormitory where Joseph Potter was playing Exploding Snap with Marcus Macnair and Quintus Quirrell. They were a real trio. Potter regularly led his friends on late-night visits to the kitchens under cover of night, where Macnair would ask the house-elves to make cake, which he then sold to first-years stupid enough to believe it was from Hogsmeade. Or at least, he had done so until the occupation. They now hung out in the (safer) common room, near the mural of some red knights fighting green knights, leaning against the wall in the manner of prepubescent boys trying to look tough. Which, Alastor thought, was pretty impossible, given Macnair's rosy cheeks and Quirrell's habit of wearing a fez.

"It's past curfew," Alastor greeted, striding into the room. He grinned for maximum effect.

The three boys leapt up.

Potter was the first to open his mouth. "We were just—"

"Playing Exploding Snap," Septimus replied. "It's okay. We're not here to make you go to bed."

"Where's your Invisibility Cloak?" Alastor interrupted, making Quirrell jump so suddenly the fez tumbled from his head. Alastor didn't care. Minerva was _gone_—and time was far more essential than the feelings of three twelve-year-old boys.

"My what?" asked Potter, clumsily attempting to look innocent.

"Plug it, Potter. We know you and these two have been gallivanting to the kitchens since your first month here. So where's the cloak?"

Potter went to his trunk and pulled out the cloak. It looked ragged, with thin threads and faded colors. Nothing remarkable.

"That's _it_?" asked Septimus, sounding almost disappointed.

Potter grinned. "Yup," he said, throwing it over his head.

And then he was gone.

Alastor reached out, but touched nothing. But the barest whisper of noise betrayed Potter's location—behind Macnair and Quirrell, by one of the beds. Whirling around and darting between the two boys, Alastor threw out a hand and felt fabric. He gave a tug and pulled the cloak from Potter's shoulders.

Septimus whistled his admiration. "That's a nice cloak," he told Potter.

"Thanks," said Potter. Then his brow furrowed. "Why do you need it?"

Alastor thought for a moment, then decided it was best to tell the kids the truth. They had to learn how serious things were for them now, now that Nazis had occupied Hogwarts.

"Minerva McGonagall went to meet with one of the Nazis over four hours ago," he told them, his clipped voice hiding his unease. "She was asking about the curriculum, and probably trying to find a way for all you younger years to get back to your families. But she hasn't come back yet. We need to look for her, but it's past curfew."

Potter nodded, his face uncommonly serious. "I understand."

"You need to," Alastor told them, fixing each of the boys with one of his looks. "You haven't been using it, have you? Since the Nazis came?"

Macnair looked sheepish. "I was going to, but Quint stopped me. Said it was too dangerous." Then his expression grew challenging—a twelve year old trying to talk back like a man. "Is it, then? It didn't sound too bad to me."

"Yes," Septimus replied. "There's a lot more at stake now than house points."

Alastor was blunter. "They catch you with that and they'll probably kill you. The muggle way."

Their eyes widened with the appropriate fear.

Good.

"Hey, where's Hagrid?" Septimus asked, referring to the only other second-year boy. While Potter, Quirrell, and Macnair were not exactly _friends _with the awkward half-giant, they _were _roommates—and Rubeus Hagrid currently wasn't in their room.

Macnair shrugged. "He said 'got ter be feedin' Arrer-gog' and left an hour ago," he offered, in a decent imitation of the half-giant's particular voice.

"Left?" Septimus repeated. "You mean left _Gryffindor_ _Tower_? Broke curfew?"

The three boys looked scared—and not only for themselves this time. They knew some of the danger now.

Alastor opened his mouth, but held back. Septimus was angry—and he _never _got angry.

"He's been doing this _often_?" Septimus hissed, his face red as his hair.

"About once a week," Potter replied, looking down.

"How long has he been gone?"

The boys didn't know. Macnair's best guess was "an hour or maybe three."

"And who's 'Arrer-gog'? Not another werewolf cub?"

Alastor hoped not. He remembered the chaos after the cubs Hagrid was hiding under his bed had gotten loose last year. It had taken ages to coax the furniture back to the common room. The chairs still trembled whenever someone brought a dog past the Fat Lady.

"I think it's a s-spider," Quirrell mumbled. "Hagrid left a book on spiders on his trunk last week."

"Great," Septimus growled. "Looks like we're looking for someone else now."

"You three stay here until we get back," Alastor ordered.

The boys nodded. They knew they were in enough trouble as it was.

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"_Accio_!" Harry hissed, waving the pipe at his unmoving boot. The holly pipe was no longer pipelike in shape; he had carved it and made it more like a wand. But though it now resembled a wand in looks, it had all the power of a stick.

"It needs a magical core," Harry muttered to himself, after failing for the last time. He kicked the boot with his bare foot. What was it that Ollivander had said about types of wand cores? The pipe would be useless without one.

His old wand's core had been a feather from Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix. Ron's wand had had unicorn hair in it. Neville had a dragon heartstring in his wand. Those were the three most common, but there were others. Fleur's wand had veela hair, while Bill's had a sphinx's claw. One of the Slytherins—Terrence something or other—had claimed to have a Naga's fang inside his.

Harry grinned to himself, remembering the occasion he'd heard _that _one. The Slytherin and Gryffindor quidditch teams had been fighting over the pitch for practice again, and the argument had degenerated into a discussion of who was the best hand in wizard dueling. Flint said he could hex Oliver "nine ways from Sunday." Oliver Wood had laughed and retorted that "a Sangrefè wand like yours couldn't hex a worm."

Harry, who at the time hadn't even known what a Parselmouth was, knew nothing about other wandmakers. Sangrefè was apparently a Spaniard wandmaker popular among pureblood families. Wood had muttered darkly that the reason his wands were so popular was probably because the ministry had a harder time monitoring them than Ollivander's. "It's certainly not the quality," Wood told Harry. "Ollivander wands put Sangrefè's to shame." It was for that reason that Malfoy had gotten an Ollivander wand, though he apparently had a Sangrefè at home to use during the summer.

The argument then turned into who had the best wand. Flint and Terrence lauded the "ingenuity" of Sangrefè's use of wand cores. Flint's core was of stone—the heart of a gargoyle. That had been news to Harry, who hadn't even known that gargoyles were real, let alone had hearts. Terrence had added his bit about Naga's fang and then Malfoy had spoken.

"My Sangrefè has dragon's blood," he announced. "From a Horntail."

Wood had gasped at that. "Dragon's blood?" he'd repeated, glowering at the boy.

"That's _disgusting_," Katie spat.

"What's so wrong about it?" Flint had asked. He waggled his massive eyebrows at the girl, who scoffed and shook her head. "Blood's as strong a core as anything. Stronger even."

"They say Slytherin had a wand core of griffin's blood," Wood murmured to Harry.

Flint scoffed. "Just an old _wise _tale. Why would he have a wand with _griffin _blood anyway? Now, _Gryffindor's_ blood he could actually _use_…"

"That's _sick_!" Wood roared, and threw the first punch.

Harry had tried to ask Wood about what Flint had said later, after the two teams had slunk back to their dormitories, attempting to avoid the prying eyes of prefects. ("The last thing we need is a detention for fighting," Katie had explained.) But Harry's questions were for nothing. Apparently the idea of using blood—especially _human _blood—in a wand was so abhorrent that no one even wanted to talk about it. Harry wasn't sure why. Blood was a natural thing—how was it any more insidious than a dragon heartstring or phoenix feather? Maybe because it was powerful—too powerful?

Snape had said something about blood once, when subbing for Professor Lupin when the latter was "sick." He'd been talking about vampires, and why they needed blood to "live."

"Blood is a powerful conduit of magical energy," Snape began, his voice with the caress he always had in it when talking about the Dark Arts. "However, most spells involving blood are rather dark in nature." Yes, there it was. "Nevertheless, blood is often used in potions for its potency."

Harry shook his head. Much as he hated to admit it, Snape had something there.

"The potency of blood depends on its magical content," Snape's voice continued. "For example, a vampire could take a pint of blood from a muggle and subsist for a few days, perhaps a week. But the same vampire could take the same amount of blood from a wizard and live for a month."

He looked down at his arm and spotted the barest of blue veins. His blood was magical blood. He'd never read anything on wizarding genetics, but he was willing to bet that was where the magic was. His DNA. His blood.

Where else would it be? His mind? Was magic a fluke in brain matter? Perhaps. Was it in the soul? No. Sometimes he wasn't even sure that such a thing existed.

"Vampires are classified as Dark creatures," Snape's continued.

"Why?" a girl had asked. It was one of the Ravenclaws, Victoria Burke, who Harry vaguely remembered as changing her name to "Chantarelle" sometime in their fourth year. She'd done so around the time she'd started wearing black stockings and scarves with her uniform, losing plenty of house points for dress code violations. She'd been in good company, Harry remembered—a lot of the Ravenclaws were weird like that. The sort that wore black and wrote poetry. The sort that secretly dreamed of meeting vampires in the night.

Idiots.

"Because of their use of human blood," Snape said slowly, as if speaking to a six-year-old. "Which, as I have said, is often used in matters of rather…sinister…intent."

Dark spells.

_Know the spells first-hand, Snivellus?_ Harry had wanted to ask. _They're Dark, after all. _

But _why_? _Why _were they Dark?

Because of the _amount _of blood used? Or maybe the blood had to be from an unwilling donor—as Harry had been, when Pettigrew (_the bastard_) had stolen his blood for the potion to resurrect Voldemort? No, maybe they were Dark simply because they involved blood. Maybe it was simply _unclean _to use blood. In anything.

Or maybe they were Dark because blood was considered _too _potent, _too _powerful.

That would make sense.

Harry looked down at his hand. The Dursleys had taken him to a doctor once. He'd been sick for a week and they'd been scared their precious Dudders would catch what he had. So they'd carted him off to the doctor's, muttering how he should be grateful to them. Harry hadn't really listened—he'd been too busy concentrating on keeping the contents of his stomach where they belonged. He'd been nervous too—he'd never been to a doctor's before. He'd seen things in movies about them, about how kids often got scared because of needles and "tests."

He got both that day. They'd pricked his thumb with a syringe and took out some blood.

"Why the thumb?" he'd asked, before Aunt Petunia had hushed him, apologizing to the doctor and telling him that her nephew was "not right in the head, you understand."

The doctor had gazed at Harry with a sort of pity and explained, very slowly, that the thumb was good because it had tough skin and cuts healed easily there. The doctor gave him a sticker then. It was the first gift he ever got, other than socks and Dudley's old clothes.

Harry'd hid it from Dudley before they got back to the car and kept it in his cupboard. It had been a sticker of Superman, his favorite hero.

For a moment, Harry was eight years old again, scared and shivering under the stairs. He looked out through the barbed wire.

Maybe something in him was meant to be a prisoner, he thought. Of the Dursleys, of the Nazis, of Destiny.

He shook his head. He didn't care anymore. His mind was numb to it.

He'd had enough.

He reached out to touch the wire.

Five minutes later, his left thumb was bleeding. But his "_Accio_" worked.

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Alastor and Septimus had found Minerva in the common room. Apparently, she'd gotten back during their interrogation of Potter's gang. She was aglow with triumph, saying that she'd convinced the Nazis to let her teach the younger years Transfiguration.

"I'm not as good as one of the old professors," she said. "But I'm the best the kids can hope for now, and they need to learn it. Transfiguration's _important_. If Doppelburg had his way, they wouldn't learn it at all—it'd make them too powerful. But I managed to convince Wagner…she thinks that the elementary Transfig curriculum isn't too dangerous. But," —she grinned triumphantly— "it's the _foundation _that's important. If the kids learn that, they can learn advanced transfiguration in no time. The Nazis can't take away our education, and it's our education that will allow us to _fight_."

Alastor wasn't so sure that Minerva's teaching would work. They'd probably have a Nazi wizard sit in on all her lessons, making sure she wasn't teaching anything _important_.

But he reflected that even if Transfiguration classes didn't help, they couldn't hurt.

With Hagrid still missing, Alastor and Septimus left, this time turning down _Minerva's _offer to help along with Gawain's. Two was enough and three was a crowd. Besides, something in Alastor felt that endangering women in a mission of rescue would be wrong. Even Minerva McGonagall, capable as she was.

They slipped the cloak over the both of them and slipped out, ignoring the Fat Lady's loud whisper of: "Oh, not _again_, Mr. Potter…"

They found Hagrid in an unused coat closet with no mere spider, but an acromantula.

"A bloody acromantula!" Alastor had exclaimed. He was the first to recognize it, as he had taken Care of Magical Creatures. He hadn't had any real love for the subject—he'd only taken it because Professor Thornberry was an easy prof—but he knew enough to recognize half-meter-long poisonous spiders when he saw them. "Do you know how dangerous those are, kid? This is even worse than those cubs you snuck in!"

"But Aragog never hurt _no one_…" Hagrid protested. "He's a good 'un, he is…"

"Your pet could kill someone, Rubeus!" Septimus told him, craning his head back in order to look the younger boy in the eyes. "Yes, _kill_. This was…stupider than I could ever dream of being! And to sneak out, after curfew—do you know what the Nazis would do if they found us?"

Septimus continued his lecture, and Hagrid hung his head in shame. Alastor felt almost sorry for the kid. Septimus was scary when he actually acted like a prefect.

Alastor heard the clock tower strike once…twice…eleven times.

"We've got to get back," he said. Septimus nodded.

It took a while to decide what to do with the spider, but the two eventually concluded that it was too dangerous to kill it right then. Neither of them was trained in putting down dangerous creatures, and such spells were noisy ones, anyway. It was best to just leave it there for the night. So they each put the acromantula's cage under at least five different containment charms and left it in the cupboard. Hagrid told it to "be good" and the three of them left.

Hagrid would pitch a fit once he realized the acromantula had to die. Alastor did not look forward to telling the kid—he really thought it was just a harmless pet.

Septimus handed the cloak to Hagrid. The cloak was just big enough for either the boy or the two of them, and there was no way Alastor and Septimus would leave a kid defenseless so that they could be invisible. Besides, the fact that the kid in question was a clumsy twelve-year-old _half-giant_ who desperately needed _some _means of disguising his presence was also important.

They took a back route back to Gryffindor Tower, one that Septimus and Alphard Black had discovered while breaking into the prefect's bathroom in their fourth year. It was slow going, as they didn't dare to light their wands and wake the portraits. They narrowly missed a patrol once, but fortunately those Nazi boots made enough racket to wake the undead. With the amount of warning they got, they had enough time to hide in the nearest classroom five times over.

After the hall was clear, they ventured out again. They were almost there—a mere staircase away—when it happened.

The voice.

From the deepest depths of nowhere, stopping the three of them in their tracks.

"_Ach so_…" said Siegfried Spungen, stepping into the light. "What are you boys doing here?"

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**MINI GLOSSARY:**

**Luftpirat** – (German for "air-pirate") otherwise known as Captain Mors, hero of a German space opera novel series from the 1920s. More here: http // www. geocities. com / jessnevins / mors . html (without spaces).

**Kampf** – German for "struggle." So _Zauberkampf_ means something like "magical combat."

**Aryan **– the Nazi "master race." Nazi writers believed that the Aryans (a group of non-Semitic Indo-European peoples) were the originators of all civilization in the world and that all other races were inferior to them. This word began as a way of describing a specific racial group, but the Nazis have resulted in its no longer being used much today. I'm oversimplifying; Wikipedia for more.

**Sangrefè** – Spanish. "Sangre" means "blood" and "fè" means "faith."

**Chantarelle** – a nod to _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. Season 2 had an episode about a group of Goth kids who wanted to become vampires. Chantarelle was the name of one of them. She later became known as Anne, a mildly recurring character in _Buffy _and _Angel_.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

**On the use of the word "Chinaman" in this fic: **

The word "Chinaman" is not meant to offend anyone – it's merely a stylistic device. I'm not using British grammar or anything, but I am using the occasional archaic word to show the mindset of the times. (Note that wizards are more "behind the times" than muggles are, so they'll keep with certain words and beliefs a generation or so after the muggles stop using them.) People just weren't politically correct back then. Racism is one of the themes of the books and it is a theme of this story as well. Alastor is rather brusque and insensitive, and he's a bit prejudiced too. Most of the students are—the biggest exception to the rule would be the Soviet witch Ludmila Dolohova, who despite having a rather Slytherin personality (as you'll find out), believes so strongly in communism that she willed herself into Hufflepuff, the house she saw as the most "proletarian."

While we're on the note of China, Ping Yuanjia and Chang Fei-Hung take their names from two Chinese folk heroes. Ping is based off Huo Yuanjia, whom the recent movie _Fearless _is about. (I suggest you Wikipedia him too, though – he's an interesting guy.) Ping is a word for "soldier." Chang Fei-Hung is based off Huang (Wong) Fei-Hung, a man known as the "Robin Hood" of China. Several movies have been made about this character, particularly the _Once Upon a Time in China _series and Jackie Chan's _Legend of the Drunken Master_. I gave him the surname Chang because he is related to someone we know from the books. (Three guesses who.)

I stuck Ping and Chang in this story because I wanted to explore what a non-European magic system would be like. I envision the Chinese wizarding world as having a sort of wuxia _Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon _feel about it – filled with men and women who blend magic and martial arts and use their abilities to run up walls and attempt kicks that "muggle" martial artists wouldn't dream of using in a real fight. The martial arts would give young Chinese (and Japanese too, I imagine) wizards the discipline necessary to manipulate magic in ways British wizards have often never seen.

At least, not in the 1940s, before the popularization of martial arts in the Western world. But by Harry's time, perhaps some Western wizards have attempted this synthesis as well. Hmmm…


	5. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

"Potter? Not the new guy? British? The _boy_?"

"I've been testing him. He gave all the right answers, and then some. This kid's a fighter."

"He's still a kid."

"He's one of those wizards."

"How do you know?"

"When he woke up, he was reaching for something at his belt, something that wasn't there. His wand. He looked lost without it—those wizards rely on their wands even more than we need our guns. And he was a soldier—I can tell. He's seventeen, he told me. Too young to have much experience on our end, but the wizards train their kids a little earlier than us. He didn't know enough about our end of the war either. He asked a question about Grindelwald before he realized I wasn't one of his kind. Then he shut up real quick."

"Sounds like a wizard, all right. They're supposed to be real secretive. Hmm. He could be useful."

"Can I bring him in?"

"Too late. You're talking about that Potter kid, aren't you? Well, it's too late. You hear those whistles last night? And the shooting? He escaped. Last night. Blondie told me—he was there. The weirdest thing too. Word on the grapevine says the SS was right about to transfer him to another prison."

"Transfer?"

"We're not supposed to house wizards here. They was gonna send him somewhere special."

"Colditz, I'll bet."

"Colditz?"

"Colditz Castle."

"I've heard of it. Poor kid."

"Yeah. I think the Krauts there have ways of making wizards powerless. Forever."

"Shit."

"There's nothing we can do, Rob. They've got him."

"Dammit, we're escape artists. We shouldn't have moved so slow on this."

"It couldn't be helped. We had to know we could trust him."

"So now they're hunting him."

"Kid didn't seem like much for hiking. They'll catch him within the week."

"Why d'ya you think that? He looked fit enough."

"I'm not talking fit. He just didn't look like he knew much about the outside world, that's all. About survival."

"Wizards are like that. All books and no brains."

"Makes sense, I guess."

"I don't agree."

"Robert, I know you liked the kid, but—"

"No, listen here. He's a kid, but he's _fought_. You see it in his eyes. He'll do whatever he has to. He'll live. He has a mission."

"A mission?"

"That's what he acted like, yeah."

"He was a serious guy."

"No kidding."

"He's gotta move _fast_."

"Let's hope wizards can run."

"If he's lucky he'll find the partisans. They'll help."

"Maybe, maybe not."

"What do you mean?"

"One of the new prisoners, he was a partisan. British. He mentioned his sergeant being something fierce against wizards."

"They know about wizards too?"

"Most likely. When the Krauts took Britain—wizards were there. Some sort of elite force. Part of the SS."

"Funny thing. They was all set on keeping themselves secret, weren't they? Wizards, I mean."

"Yeah. Funny. But now they don't seem to care."

"God help us."

"I don't think everyone knows about them. A lot of fighting men, but I can't see a reason anyone else would've seen one."

"Shit."

"What?"

"If that kid's the sort of wizard we've got on _our _side…"

"Yeah. I know."

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"You did it."

The darkness was warm and soft and smiling, and Tom Riddle had been dreaming. Dreaming of something he couldn't quite remember, but it had been a good thing. Wonderful.

And Claudius Avery had ruined it.

"You did it," Avery said again. His voice was soft, but Lord Voldemort was a very light sleeper. There was no question of his going back to dreams now.

Oh well. It was good that his other roommates, Nott and Greengrass, weren't in—for Avery's sake. Those two never shut up.

Tom sat up, resisting the urge to rub his head. He was still in his uniform robes, with an opened book on legilimancy in his lap. The curtains weren't even drawn shut around his bed. He must have fallen asleep while studying.

But he _never _fell asleep while studying.

And that Avery was _still _there. He looked at the boy and belatedly remembered his accusation.

"Did _what_?" he asked sharply, hoping to startle the boy into silence.

"You transfigured the muggle's head," Avery told him, barely flinching under Tom's glare. "You did that, didn't you." It was not a question.

Tom was impressed. He hadn't expected Avery to catch that.

"Yes," he replied evenly, hiding his smile. He leaned back, waiting for Avery's reaction.

"I see," Avery said slowly, nodding. "That's why you reminded McGonagall that you had only taken up to fifth-year Transfiguration, so she'd think you were only at that level."

"And you think I'm not?"

"I'm not oblivious," Avery retorted. "You were reading N.E.W.T.-level Transfig last year."

Tom smiled. "In our third year, actually."

"Why did you do it?" Avery asked. Tom tilted his head and tried to use something he'd learned in the legilimancy book. He wasn't sure if it was legilimancy or the look on the boy's face that told him that Claudius Avery was a mixture of curious, horrified, and impressed.

"I wanted to see how they would react," Tom said vaguely.

"They?"

"Everyone. McGonagall, those Gryffindors with her, _Hauptscharführer_ Weiss." Tom smiled again. "You." Tom noted Avery's expression and adjusted his words. "I did not expect that the muggle would strangle you, though."

Avery nodded and tried to cover his unease.

"Life is a game of chess," he said slowly.

Tom nodded. "Exactly."

"My brother always says that," Avery continued. A flicker of sadness crossed his face. "He's in Canada now, working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

Canada. Tom silently scoffed. Figures Domitian Avery would find a nice, safe place to wait out the war.

"Building up political connections?" he asked.

"He wants to be in the Ministry," Avery replied. "Not Minister of Magic—says it's too stressful—but something close. Probably Wizengamot—he says it's an easy job with good pay and prestige. Or, it was…" Avery looked lost. "They disbanded the Wizengamot, didn't they? The Nazis?"

"The Wizengamot adjourned itself," Tom corrected. "Shortly before the siege of London, the judges presumably portkeyed to Switzerland or some other neutral country. They're probably in Canada now, with your brother."

"I don't like this," Avery admitted. "It seems a little…"

"Cowardly?" Tom offered. Avery winced at the word choice, but nodded.

"I thought Dom should stay, but our parents would have none of it. But then again, no one thought those German muggles would…invade us like this."

The two boys were silent: Avery pensive, Tom thoughtful.

"I need your help," Avery blurted.

Tom fixed the boy with another look. "My help?"

"I…we need to learn about muggles. How they think, how they fight. But I can't just go to the library—I see those Gryffindors in there all the time, with books on aerophanes and auto-automo…"—He struggled to pronounce it the muggle way, then gave up and gave it a proper Latinate intonation.— "…au-to-mo-bee-lays. They're too obvious about it. The Nazis are gonna start searching our rooms every _day _if they keep that up."

"I agree."

"And that's why I need to talk to you," Avery concluded. "Most of us don't have any experience with muggles. I've read books about King Arthur—I loved them as a _kid_—but that's the most I've ever studied anything muggle. Goyle worked for a muggleborn barrister one summer, but he doesn't know anything about how muggles _fight_. Though he did introduce me to some strange music called 'sling'…"

"Swing," Tom corrected. Avery looked at him, expecting him to continue, but Tom did not. He sat back against his pillow and waited.

"Look, Riddle, I know we've never gotten on that well…" Avery shifted his weight from his right foot to his left. "…and, for what it's worth, I'm sorry about Dom's treatment of you. It was unwarranted—I can tell that now. You're as loyal to the wizarding world as any of us, and I…" He shifted his weight back again. "…I can tell you hate them. The Nazis. You want to fight them, get them out of Hogwarts. I want to fight them too." He closed his mouth, and his jaw hardened. Avery looked Tom in the eyes, and held out his hand in a gesture of peace.

Tom smiled. He had a strange little vision in his mind, of the war ending and Domitian coming back from Canada to find Tom Riddle, halfblood outcast of Slytherin House, a publicly recognized _war hero_ (and known to be the heir of Salazar Slytherin himself) and leader of the British wizarding resistance to the defeated muggle invaders, with his old enemy's own younger brother standing by his side as his loyal and most devoted _friend_.

Tom took Avery's hand.

Besides, the Avery name had a decent pull in the wizarding world. Tom would do well to obtain its alliance. The step from _alliance _to _allegiance _was not that great a leap.

"We'll start with guns," Tom began, without further ado. "Guns are the muggle version of the Killing Curse…"

And as he spoke, he plotted. He had weapons now. With luck, he could have key members of Slytherin House ready within a month. Then he could recruit members of Gryffindor and the other houses. Hufflepuff had some war refugees that would be certain to join his fight against the Nazis. And Ravenclaw had some decent duelists, once you could pry them away from their books.

And once the Nazis were done with, once Hogwarts was restored…

Why, then _anything _was possible. The kids who'd follow him in the war would be certain to follow him beyond, to greater things.

_First Hogwarts and then the world_, Tom told himself. He inwardly laughed. It was a rush, thinking like this.

But he'd have to train them first. Teach them the curses he'd been teaching himself for the past four years. And he'd need to learn some new things too. Ever since he'd found the Chamber of Secrets last May, his new project had been legilimancy. He figured he could master it in eight months—four if he put occlumency to the side for a bit.

He'd have to do that. While the books recommended that occlumency be learned before legilimancy, the only reason Tom would need to shield his mind had disappeared.

No, the wizard Dumbledore was no longer at Hogwarts to interfere. That was one thing he could thank the Nazis for.

Time was too important to waste. Tom would have to dispense with occlumency for the moment. He could always go back to it after the Nazis were gone—it wouldn't do to leave his mind open for any decent legilimens to pickpocket.

Tom schemed with Avery for half the night, but eventually returned to bed. He didn't take his customary dose of Dreamless Sleep potion. Though he normally couldn't sleep without it, he wanted to remember what was in these new dreams of his. All he could recall of the other ones was something to do with flying (on broomsticks, no less, which he _hated_) and a buck-toothed, bushy-haired girl and a rather dense-looking redheaded boy. He couldn't see why, but he'd enjoyed the dreams and wanted to have them again. To see _why _he was having them, what they were all about

What they were all about

all about

a l l

a b o u t

He fell asleep.

He wouldn't remember his dreams when he woke, but in his sleep he laughed and flew and talked, feeling lighter than he ever had before.

And had Avery dared to part the curtains around Riddle's bed, he would have seen a little smile on the boy's lips, strange because it was rare and strange also because it was genuine, childlike, and _happy_.

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Spungen smiled, his teeth glittering in the dim wandlight. Beside him stood two muggle Nazis. One of them was the sergeant from before, the man who'd threatened Avery and taken his transfigured comrade to Madam Pasteur. "What are you doing here?" he repeated.

Alastor heard a skidding sound as Rubeus Hagrid stopped, trembling under the invisibility cloak. Spungen's gaze switched from Alastor to the patch of seemingly-unoccupied space where Hagrid was.

"Looking for someone," Alastor answered loudly, hoping Hagrid wouldn't be stupid enough to take off the cloak. "A second-year. He left Gryffindor Tower to find a pet of his, and we left as soon as we heard he was missing."

"You should have alerted a patrol," Spungen replied. "You know that your fireplace can be used to call us whenever you need to. You could have called me, and I would have put all our guards on alert."

"We didn't want to get him in trouble," Septimus blurted. "He's just a kid."

"Even children should know better than to disobey rules set down _for their own safety_," said Spungen. "This is a time of war, gentlemen, and mistakes aren't kind in times of war."

The sergeant snorted.

"Children should get used to this reality as soon as they can," Spungen continued, ignoring the sergeant.

"We wanted to take care of this ourselves," Alastor answered. "Septimus here is the seventh-year prefect. It was always the prefects' responsibility to take care of the younger years and patrol the school at night. We felt that it was our responsibility to continue looking after them."

He wondered if this would do the trick. His words smacked of all the Nazi rhetoric about "duty" and "comradeship."

Spungen was silent. "You make an interesting case, men. And it's funny you should say that." he added, grinning. "It's funny because we were just forming an organization of students to do exactly what your prefects used to. They are meant to patrol the halls at night and watch out for their fellows. It will be a great help to the sentries guarding you, I'll tell you that. We have the same thing in Germany, and call it the _Streifendienst_."

"The _Strye-fen-deenst_," Alastor repeated.

"Yes," said Spungen. "Perhaps you heard the _Kommandant_ mention it in his speech last night."

Alastor mentally rolled his eyes. Herr wannabe-Headmaster said a lot of crap in his post-supper speeches.

But he recognized the reference. In fact, he'd lately seen some students wearing gray armbands over their left sleeves. Not many—just a few Slytherins and Ravenclaws. They hadn't volunteered to explain their new additions to the dress code, but Alastor was willing to bet that this was the insignia for the new _Streifendienst_.

Spungen grinned at the two of them. "I think you two would make excellent young officers, in fact."

"You want us to join this…organization?" asked Septimus. They looked at each other. Alastor hadn't expected this. He tried to hide his disgust.

He dared not look at Hagrid. He had heard nothing from the boy's corner, so he figured the second-year was still standing next to them, too scared to move, trying to make himself as small as he could under the threadbare invisibility cloak.

"Certainly," said Spungen. "Let me tell you something, men. Some men are outright leaders and some lead by following. Some fight against all authority, and others…there are others who neither lead nor follow, neither fight nor do their duty. Those last ones are the ones to watch for, Weasley." He turned to Alastor. "Moody."

_Constant vigilance_.

Alastor wondered what his father would think if he could tell him about this, if he could tell him that he was seriously considering the Nazi's offer. It would appear to be collaboration, yes, but what if he could spy better in the _Streifendienst_, watch how things were going?

To be vigilant, as always.

"I can tell you both are leaders. I can also tell you don't particularly trust us."

Alastor kept his face neutral.

"And that's to be expected," Spungen added, with a rueful smile. "You think we are your enemy because you've been taught to. It will be hard for you to learn that we want to protect this school and its students, but I don't expect you to learn that overnight. So I and _Hauptscharführer_ Weiss here will escort you back to Gryffindor Tower, and I will let you think about my offer. You'll probably find that the lost boy has wandered in during your absence."

Damn. Alastor had forgotten about that. He should have asked Spungen about the "lost" kid before Spungen mentioned it himself. He needed to look concerned about it, the way he would if Hagrid were _really _missing and not standing next to him right now. Dammit. Alastor was not cunning like a Slytherin, and Spungen here seemed a better Slytherin than most of the students in that house.

"We need to find him ourselves," Alastor protested, trying to make up for his lapse. "We want to be on the search party."

"And I would expect no less from you," Spungen replied, but he didn't seem to buy it. Was he grinning, with a sort of "I-know-what-you're-doing" gleam in his eye, or was Alastor being as paranoid as his—?

Never mind.

He couldn't worry now. He'd walk with Spungen, hope Hagrid had enough sense to follow _slowly_, and sort things out once he got to the common room. It wasn't the best plan, but it was all he had.

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Spungen led the way, with Moody and Weasley following. The two soldiers brought up the rear, with their guns held high.

Paralyzed with fear, a boy huddled under an invisibility cloak, watching the men move away. With them, the only source of light also went away. The boy had never been afraid of the dark before (you can find the _best _creatures in dark places!), but now he couldn't suppress a shiver.

The men marched away, and turned a corner…

…and Rubeus Hagrid was alone.

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**MINI-GLOSSARY:**

_Streifendienst_ – a part of the _Hitlerjugend_ (Hitler Youth), the Nazi youth organization.

http :// www .axishistory. com/ index. php? id 3058 (without spaces) for more info.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Rubeus was alone, in the dark, surrounded by sleeping portraits and Nazi patrols, alone, alone, alone…

"That's enough, Hagrid—take off the cloak."

…with…

"Filch?" Rubeus asked, looking down at his savior.

"That's _Mister _Filch to you," Filch grumbled. He looked not a day above twenty, but he growled like the old man Apollyon Pringle had been.

"Sorry," said Rubeus. His relief gave way to worry. Filch was working for the Nazis, wasn't he? He thought he'd heard some of the older Gryffindors talking about it. And…was that a horsewhip he was wearing? Rubeus had never liked horsewhips—it was cruel to hit a horse, even if most thought it a perfectly fine way to tell them to go faster…

"Well now, get moving," Filch went on, starting to walk, "and follow me."

He led the boy into a broom closet. It looked unused, for the most part, but Rubeus knew that sometimes older boys went in there to…to _be alone with girls_. Rubeus reddened at the thought of it. He recalled a night of jokes down in the common room, where numerous couples had turned as red as he. He also remembered that one of the jokes had been about Filch and Pringle.

Filch went to the back of the closet and tapped the wall a few times. Then he bent down and touched the floor once.

The wall disappeared, replaced by a rack of coats. Parting the coats, Filch walked out of what had now become a coat closet…

…and into his office.

"All broom closets lead to the caretaker's office," Filch told the startled boy. "Well?" he added impatiently. "Come out of there, will you."

Rubeus left the closet, scraping his head on the doorway and stooping to avoid crashing into the candelabra hanging from the office's ceiling.

"But this…" Rubeus said slowly. "This isn't Pringle's old office. It's too small. And the…" He motioned to the candelabra. "…wasn't there before."

"Yes, I daresay you've been in _Mister _Pringle's office enough to know the difference," Filch snarled. "That business with the werewolves…and the skrewts…and that thestral…suffice to say, you've been there a bit. And no, this isn't his office. I work out of _my _office, and leave Mister Pringle's be."

"Where is Mister Pringle?" Rubeus asked, before he could stop himself.

Anger rippled through Filch's face.

Rubeus backed into a filing cabinet.

"Mister Pringle," growled Filch, "is _dead_."

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"Just kill me," said the Auror. His words were remarkably coherent for a man with both his legs cursed with advanced leprosy and his wand arm blasted off, but Harry didn't think about that. He'd never seen so much blood before. He tried to look away, but he couldn't move. He would later be glad he hadn't, as he soon learned that a leader like The Chosen One couldn't afford to show grief. He had to think about troop morale now.

"Jus' kill me," he said again. "Say 'ssommnus.' Do it. Please."

Somnus. A sleeping charm.

"Don't let him sleep!" the healer had said. "Sleep would put him in a coma, or kill him."

"What should I do?" Harry had asked, regretting that he'd ever offered to help the mediwizards. What had he been thinking? He wasn't a healer. There was nothing he could do. Nothing. Except watch them all die.

"Talk to him!" the witch snapped, already moving for another room, another makeshift casualty ward. "Keep him awake!"

He couldn't do this.

"Wait!" cried Harry, but she'd already gone.

"Please," the Auror said again, snapping Harry back to the moment. "Kill me."

Harry didn't. He'd told the man he'd be okay until the healer came back. An hour later, he died.

This was just a dream, a memory, but he couldn't wake up.

Harry looked back down at the man. This was all routine—he'd had worse dreams lately. He took the wand from his holster (remembering the time Moody gave him that holster, so he wouldn't blow off his buttocks by using his trouser pockets) and turned it over in his hand. Then he pointed it at the man's shivering form.

There was no sense in him suffering for the next hour, even if he was merely the figment of a dream. The man breathed out and leaned back. Harry thought the Auror looked afraid for a moment, but he uttered "Somnus" anyway. Within five minutes, he had stopped breathing.

"Harry," a woman breathed.

He didn't look up. "Hullo, Hermione."

He heard the rustling of another set of robes. "Hi, Ron."

"Harry," Ron greeted.

Harry remained still, staring at the dead man. He thought dead men were supposed to look peaceful, but this one didn't. He just looked like a corpse.

The two shadows stood at his back. He knew they wouldn't try to comfort him. Harry hadn't been able to handle the dream where Hermione tried to help him and put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't need this comfort—he could handle the pain. He was _better _with pain.

"You need to wake up," Hermione said.

Harry shrugged. He didn't mind the dreams anymore. They'd come to him so often they were like old friends now, more real than the ghosts behind him.

"Get up, Harry," Ron insisted.

"It's _important_," begged Hermione.

Harry shook his head and stepped away from them—he didn't need this.

"Harry!"

"They're coming."

Ron grabbed his shoulder and forced him around. Resigned, Harry raised his eyes to look at Ron's.

"They're coming," the boy repeated. But it wasn't Ron anymore.

It was Tom Riddle.

He looked the same as ever. Still taller than Harry, with the same blue eyes. Only not. They were blue like ocean now, not ice. In the chamber, they'd been ice-blue, the color of detachment. But now his eyes were blue like a hurricane sea, dark and filled with rage.

"Harry Potter," Riddle spat, and punched him in the face.

Harry woke up.

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Someone was knocking on Filch's door.

"Mister Pringle is…dead?" Rubeus repeated.

"Yes!" said Filch. It took Rubeus a moment to realize that he was talking through the door and not to him. "One moment!"

He turned to Rubeus and shoved the boy in the direction of the closet. Rubeus got in, kneeling to make himself fit more comfortably.

"Good morning, _Hauptscharführer_ Weiss," Rubeus heard Filch greet.

"_Scheisse_!—it _is _morning, isn't it?" the German replied. "_Mein_ _Gott_, I've been patrolling since yesterday afternoon."

Filch grunted his agreement. "Same here. Tea, Konrad?"

"_Nein_, Argus. I'm looking for a kid. Gryffindor. Damn boy gets himself lost and we find out about just as I'm about to go off shift. Lousy kids."

"Gryffindors are troublemakers like that," Filch agreed. "What's the name?"

"Rufus Haygrid? I think that's it."

"I know who you mean—real troublemaker, that one—but I haven't seen him."

"Troublemaker?"

"Oh, nothing for you to get worked up about. Mostly he finds monsters and makes them his pets. Nothing sinister 'bout it, just typical bleeding-heart Gryffindor."

Weiss snorted. "You know, I never understood why you wizards refer to each other by houses."

"I don't either," Filch replied. "I was never sorted myself. Never went to school, see."

"_Ach, ja_," Weiss replied. "You're a—what do you call it?"

"Squib," Filch told him. "And a lot of trouble I get for it too. Damn wizards think they're superior to the rest of us. You should know, being muggle."

"_Ja_," Weiss spat. "All I get from this place is—_verdammte_ _Scheisse_! You hear what those kids did today? They turned Schroeder's head into a fish! Rudi almost _died_, the little _Schweinhunde_! It's all a game to them, yes? Those little wizards. Our lives are games for them."

"It's always been that way," Filch replied. "They never respected me, or men like me. 'Course, it probably doesn't help that I'm less than two years older than the seventh-years. Plus, my family's not too influential, even in the wizarding world."

"Damn _politics_," Weiss snarled. "We have it also. Can't have admirals' sons going to the front with the rest of us, no." The German sighed. "But it's getting better. The _Hitlerjugend_ kids all help work on the farms, even if they're city brats. Everyone does the same _Hilfswerk_, the same duties. Of course, that can be a joke—one of the kids assigned to help my mother's farm has never even _seen _a cow, let alone milked one. _Dummkopfe_, the lot of them."

Filch laughed. Rubeus expected the man's laugh to sound like a rasp or a cackle, but Filch's laugh was a full-throated chuckle.

Rubeus was beginning to feel better about his situation.

"Well, Argus, I'd better go," Weiss was saying. "I only had time to stop in and ask about the kid. Tell me if you've seen him, _ja_?"

"If I see him, I'll send a ghost," Filch replied.

"A ghost?" Weiss repeated. "Not one of _them_—they give me the…ach, just send a student."

"A student?" Filch repeated. "Better stick with ghosts, they cause less trouble." There was a pause. "Usually." Another pause. "Bloody poltergeist."

Weiss laughed. "_Ja_, _Herr _Peeves—I've seen his work. He frightened a load of new men the other day—now they're hunting after him with guns."

Filch snorted.

"I'd better go," said Weiss.

"Here's hoping you get some sleep," Filch offered.

"You also," the German replied.

Rubeus heard a door open and close. Then he heard another door open—only to blink and realize that Filch had just opened the door to the closet he was crouching in.

"Come out," said Filch.

"Thank you," Rubeus replied. Filch merely grunted. "Who was that?"

"_Hauptscharführer_ Konrad Weiss," Filch replied. "Muggle SS. He's decent—for one of _them_. More a soldier than a Nazi."

"What do you mean?"

Filch sighed. "Too young to know the difference, kid." But at Rubeus's insistent look, he continued. "There are three kinds of Nazis. The first fights for his country, but he cares about his own advancement too. Doppelburg's like that." Filch took off his coat. "Think of them as Slytherins. Then there's the fanatics—they fight for their country because their leader tells them. You'll find them with both the wizards and the muggles, only the wizards quote Grindelwald and Himmler, while the muggles—" He tossed his coat onto a coathanger. "—salute Hitler. Bit mad in their loyalty, they are—" From the corner, the coathanger gave a polite bow. "—they're like Hufflepuffs gone wrong. That's Spungen. Then there's the soldiers about them, the Gryffindors, the ones who fight for their country. Weiss is like that. These men'll fight for Hitler too, but given a choice between him and the Fatherland, they'd choose the Fatherland. But, unfortunately for us, most of em never have to make that choice."

Rubeus tried to digest the new information, and failed.

"Knew you were too young," Filch said. He waved Rubeus to his desk. Rubeus walked over, forgetting to duck under the candelabra. His head smacked straight into it.

Rubeus rubbed it, wincing.

"You'd better sit down," Filch muttered, using a booted heel to nudge a chair over to him. Momentarily ignoring the boy, he reached down to stroke a cat that had suddenly appeared. Rubeus realized that it was Pringle's old kitten, Mrs. Norris. She was less than a year old, but her gray coloring and scraggly fur made everyone think she was older. Perhaps even as old as Pringle himself had been. Pringle, a man like a stone gargoyle—eroded something fierce, but in a way _immortal_.

Mrs. Norris sauntered by Rubeus's chair, and the boy automatically reached out to pet her. She preened under his touch.

"She likes you," Filch said, sounding almost reluctant. "Must be something worthwhile in that head of yours. She doesn't like the Germans—she knows they killed him, see."

"Mister Pringle?" Rubeus asked.

Filch nodded.

"How do you know?" the boy asked.

"Found his body in the Forbidden Forest," Filch replied. Rubeus was startled—he hadn't expected Filch to answer so readily. "Over by the centaurs. You know where—you've been in there enough."

Rubeus nodded sheepishly. He had served two detentions in the forest and gone there a few other times as well.

"He was with the professors," Filch continued, his voice growing soft.

"What about the other teachers?" Rubeus interrupted. "What happened to them?"

"Oh, they're dead," Filch said tonelessly. "Never saw them come back."

Rubeus was quiet.

"How did Mister Pringle die?"

"Wasn' a mark on 'im," Filch murmured, his eyes seeming to focus on something far away. "Must 'ave been the Killing Curse." His eyes grew dim with something—a sort of mist? "He was like my father, you know. The father of my birth didn't care for me after he learned I couldn't do magic, but Apollyon was a squib like me. But I doubt _you'd _understand."

"My father never thought I'd be magical," Rubeus admitted. "'cause of me mum…you see…she wasn'ae human."

"She was a giantess," Filch replied. At Rubeus's look of astonishment, he explained: "I guessed it was somewhat like that. I suppose you'd understand some of it, then." His eyes hardened and he looked away. "But they're all dead now, and there's nothing we can do, magical or not.

"At least," his eyes snapped back to Rubeus, "there's nothing we can do about _them_. But the rest of us can do something for ourselves."

"What do you mean?" asked Rubeus.

Filch shook his head. "Just tell Mr. Moody and Mr. Weasley what I've just told you. About Mister Pringle, and the others. They'll know what to make of it. Tell them about the broom closets too—just warn them I'd better not catch them in here over something stupid, or I'll hang them by their thumbs." He jerked his head at some chains on the wall, which reacted to Filch's attention by giving an obedient rattle.

Filch stood up and moved to a filing cabinet. "Now, about you…you can't go back to the Tower now—it's being watched by the Nazis. You'll have to stay in here til curfew ends. Then you can go to _Appell_. Tell the others you were in the Tower the whole time. Tell them you spent the night on the watchtower—no one goes up there when the weather's this stormy. They'll probably think you were trying to breed killer pigeons or secretly raising a dragon."

Rubeus looked away. He'd always wanted a dragon. Oh well. Aragog was the best pet a boy could hope for. And, even better, it looked like Filch didn't even know about him!

"But in the meantime…" Filch's eyes glittered dangerously. "You can make yourself useful. Help me sort out these detention records, starting with the Cs…"

It was three-thirty in the morning.

Rubeus had a good three hours to go.

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There were rafters above him and a bunk below. He was in the barracks.

Harry rolled over. Animal was snoring and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep anymore that night. He stared out vacantly. Animal was snoring, the air was cold, the searchlight was shining through the window, and the Germans were talking outside.

Home sweet stalag.

Wait.

Harry sat up and listened. The German was too soft to make out, but Harry didn't like it. The Germans were never this loud after lights-out.

Harry felt for his wand. He'd hid it inside the band of the sock he wore, with his trouser leg covering the end of it, and now he grabbed it with ease.

He listened for the words again. He still couldn't make them out, but he could tell—the words were _moving_. The voices had been coming closer all along.

Harry slid off the bed and landed in a crouch, ducking so the searchlight wouldn't catch his shadow in the window. When the light moved away, Harry stood up to reach his bed. He had eight seconds—he'd timed the searchlight before. Boots, jacket, and a hat he'd won off Shapiro in a poker match. He grabbed them all and crouched down again.

He dog-crawled over to the corner and pulled out his wand.

He was wondering what to do when he heard someone sit up. Harry's heart froze until he saw that it was Crazy Joey, looking down at him with wide child's eyes.

"Go back to sleep, Joey," he whispered, trying to keep the harshness out of his voice. Joey's plane had been shot died and he'd been the only crewman of six to make it. He hadn't spoken a single word since. He just sat on his bunk all day and played a piccolo Carter'd made from wood. "It's not morning yet."

Joey swung his feet over the side of the bunk and slid off with a strange sort of grace. For a moment, Harry wondered if it was because the man was mad. He remembered Voldemort in the cemetery. He'd moved with the same kind of grace. An unnatural, inhuman kind of grace – the grace of a leopard poised to pounce, or a god hurling thunderbolts in the sky. A madman's grace.

"No!" Harry hissed. "Joey! The guards are coming! It's the goons, Joey—go back to bed!"

The man blinked at Harry. And then, he knew that Joey _knew_.

"Yeah," Harry admitted. "It's because of me." The guards are coming because of me. The Nazis invaded Britain because of me. Grindelwald and Hitler will rule the world—because of me.

Joey stepped forward. Harry stepped back. Fear hit him like a fist. Joey knew—and now he was angry. He was _mad_.

Joey moved past Harry and strode to the stove at the center of the room. He wrapped his arms around it like a bear and tried to lift it. He failed and waved an arm at Harry. It was a moment before Harry understood that Joey was asking him to help.

The voices were moving closer; they were almost at the door. Harry had to do something—stand just inside the door and jump the first man who came in. And pray his wand would defend him from the rest.

There was a thud. Joey had picked up the stove—and dropped it.

Animal stopped snoring. Hoffie rolled over. "What the—_Joey_?" He sat up. "_Harry_?"

Harry stepped closer to the madman. The stove was on its side and in the space where it had been was…a hole. A big, deep hole.

A tunnel.

Harry dove for it.

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"Al!" called Septimus, striding into the sixth-year boys' dormitory. "Alastor!"

Two of the room's three occupants (Gryffindor had been a bit down on numbers lately—Muggleborns hadn't started at Hogwarts since the war began, while wizardborn boys were leaving to join the Ministry's hastily-formed Home Guard) were up and dressed. The third was merely a lump in his bed.

"Hey, Bones, Lockhart," Septimus greeted. The others nodded back.

Bertran Bones began to respond when Septimus put a finger to his lips and started tiptoeing over to Alastor's bed. He stood over the bed for a moment, looking for all the world like a vampire about to swoop down on his prey—save the fact that Alastor Moody wasn't a nubile young woman in a nightdress, but a half-shaven sixth-year boy with a dire need to charm his breath with mint or something.

Septimus took out his wand, brandishing it for the benefit of Bones and Lockhart. He drew a circle in the air above Alastor's head and shouted: "PANDEMONIA!"

A noise that managed to resemble nails on chalkboard, screaming five-year-olds, magic-carpet jousting, and a quartet of accordions erupted from the tip of Septimus's wand.

Alastor jumped out of bed and made to strangle the other boy, but Septimus leapt out of his way.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he shouted merrily.

It was Alastor's family's motto. For four hundred years, the Moody Family had been known for its stewards, guardsmen, law enforcement officers, and watchtower keepers. It wasn't a glamorous legacy, but it was better than none. The coat of arms was a lone figure standing before a mighty castle. The man was a Moody, the castle's sole sentry. There was a legend about that man, Virgil Moody, but Septimus had forgotten the specifics. He'd have to ask Alastor about that one.

With a flourish, Septimus holstered his wand in his robe pocket. Alastor muttered a recommendation for an alternative place to put it as he reached for his uniform.

Septimus smiled. He hadn't seen Alastor acting so normal since before…

Suddenly, all memories of last night hit the waking boy. Septimus could tell, just from the now-murderous expression on his face.

"Where's the kid?" Alastor muttered. "Damn kid kept us up half the night—"

"Hagrid's safe," Septimus replied. "A house-elf came with a note. It was from Filch."

Alastor flinched in surprise. "_Filch_?"

"It's okay," the Weasley reassured. "He said he—"

"Are we all ready for the morning _Appell_?" came a voice.

The four boys whirled around to face the speaker. His stomach sinking, Septimus wondered how much the man had heard.

It was a German, one of the SS wizards and Doppelburg's "adjutant." Septimus wasn't too good at reading insignia, but he could tell the man had a middling rank, perhaps a low-grade lieutenant. He was important enough to strut, but not important enough to get out of the menial task of being the morning wake-up call for a houseful of young wizards. Septimus, through careful scrutiny, had learned his name—Hasselbach.

Septimus felt uneasy. It had been over a month since the occupation began, and the Germans had never gone so far as to enter individual dormitories before, not since the second day, when they had gone in to check "for weapons" and found none save the wands the students wore.

But now the soldier was just standing in front of them, nonchalantly as the sun, as if he had a _right _to be there. It occurred to Septimus that this was the way it was going to be now. The wake-up Nazi would always go straight to their rooms now, and soon the students would forget that he hadn't done that at first, that he had once waited for them in the common room, leaving them to wake up in privacy.

"Yes," Septimus replied, noticing Bones and Lockhart straighten their postures like soldiers standing at attention. "Yes, we're ready."

This statement was rather ludicrous, as Alastor was still changing clothes. He wasn't even wearing trousers. The Nazi grinned at them in a way that made Septimus uncomfortable and barked a laugh. "See that you are, men."

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The tunnel wasn't what Harry had originally expected. It only cut through the barracks floor, to the dirt underneath. Each barrack was built on a raised foundation (meant to _prevent _tunneling), so the tunnel under the stove was really merely a hole in the floor.

He tried to move up and hit his head. There was too little space to crawl—he'd have to squirm his way out. To crawl not on hands and knees, but on his stomach. Move like a snake, not a dog.

He swiped a hand over the dirt coating his glasses. He could barely see through the smears, but at least the largest dirt clods were off. He'd fix his glasses later—the voices were at the door now. Harry could see German boots a mere meter from his face.

"Everybody up!" a German shouted. "Out of your beds! _Schnell, macht schnell_!"

"What's the meaning of this?" Hoffie asked. His voice was muffled. Joey must have moved the stove over the hole again.

Harry watched the boots ascend into the hut.

Time seemed to slow. They'd realize his escape in mere moments, but he couldn't run yet. The searchlight was in front of his barracks, now right in front of the barracks across from him—_now_.

He sprang from the dirt like a zombie out of hell.

Then he ran.

It was a miracle the lights didn't hit him—he wasn't stopping to calculate their movements. He wasn't even staying in the shadows of the prisoners' huts—he was making a mad, linear dash for the wire.

The guard nearest the wire began to turn. Surely he had seen the mad runner out of the corner of his eye.

Harry hissed a Cutting Charm: "Severo!" Another: "Slicendice!" Another: "Sectumsempra!"

Nothing worked.

The guard gaped at him, fumbling for his gun.

"No!" Harry breathed. "Don't shoot!"

The gun barrel rose.

"No—don't! _Don't shoot!_"

Harry stumbled. He was dead now.

But where were the bullets? It was supposed to be _raining _them by now. Why hadn't the guard shot him?

Harry lifted his head.

The guard was frozen and his eyes were distant. Glazed. Like Viktor Krum's had been, after being Imperius'd in the Triwizard Tournament…

The guard blinked and re-aimed his gun.

No – not again!

"_Stop_!" he screamed.

Again, the guard froze.

Harry rose.

For some reason, he wasn't scared anymore. The guard's eyes were dimmed with white and he wasn't using his gun. Harry reached for the weapon, but he had barely outstretched his arm before the guard handed it over. Just like that.

Harry heard a shout from his barracks. But he still wasn't scared. It was like he was living on borrowed energy, stolen from the man he'd just cursed.

He turned back to the guard, but his eyes were still glassy. The (_Imperius_) curse wasn't wearing off as fast this time. Good. "Open the door," Harry ordered. The guard stumbled to obey. "Hurry!"

A whistle pierced the night.

The first gate opened.

"Now the next one!"

The searchlight moved to find Harry, and the second gate opened.

"Stop them!" Harry finished, beginning to run again. The guard likewise began to run, moving towards the barracks he'd just escaped from, doubtless attempting to take on his fellow guards singlehandedly.

Harry threw his borrowed rifle on the ground. It was heavy, and Harry hadn't the faintest clue how to use it. He should have given it back to the guard—then the soldier could have a chance at slowing the others down. Oh well.

He ran beyond the searchlight. The forest was safe, too dark for any searchlights to find him. He grinned as the shadows swallowed him up.

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**MINI-GLOSSARY:**

_Hauptscharführer_ - Waffen-SS sergeant.

_Scheisse_ – German curse (of the non-magical variety). Alternative word for excrement.

_Mein_ _Gott _– "My God!"

_Nein _– "no"

_Ja_ – "yes"

_Verdammte_ _Scheisse _– German, similar to "bloody hell."

_Schweinehunde_ (plural) – German. Literally "pig-dog," but can be understood as "bastards."

_Hilfswerk_ – Something like "public social work."

_Dummkopfe_ – (hopefully this is the right plural form – couldn't get my trusty online German dictionary to help me…) Literally "dumb-head"—"idiot"—but the meaning is a little stronger than that.

_Stalag_ – P.O.W. camp

_Crazy Joey _– Character and backstory shamelessly stolen from _Stalag_ _17_. This is the last of the blatant WWII movie ripoffs. (I think.) That's right – Harry's on his own now!


End file.
